The broadcast receiver that incorporates an HDD as a recording medium and records programs on the recording medium, when recording a program on the recording medium, determines whether the program content is prohibited from being copied afterward. If it is determined that the program content is prohibited from being copied afterward, the receiver divides the program content into segments of data size falling, for example, within the range between 45 sec. and 60 sec., as time taken to play back the data at 1.times. speed, and stores the segments into a plurality of files, respectively. Even in case of accidental disconnection of the device power or network interface, it becomes possible to positively move content that was once recorded on a recording medium to another external device and recording medium under the conditions prescribed for copyright protection.