A camera control apparatus provides an end user with environment to easily remote-control a video camera via a general network such as the Internet. When the camera control apparatus 1001 receives a file-transfer request described in the format of the network from an external device 1002 connected to the apparatus, it handles a characters in a character string of a file name of the request as camera-control characters. As a result, if the character string includes description corresponding to the format for camera control, the camera control apparatus 1001 controls the camera in accordance with the description to perform image sensing, and transfers the obtained video image as the content of an image file requested by the external device as the file-transfer request originator.