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Digital information recording apparatus and outputting apparatus

Digital information recording apparatus and outputting apparatus description/claims

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing digital information such as video, voice, etc., as well as an information recording/reproducing apparatus for the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for limiting recording of reproduced information onto other. media on authorities given by the copyright holders, etc.

2. Description of Related Art

Now that digital TV broadcasting is started, various private-use digital recording/reproducing apparatuses have been put on the market in such package media fields as movie software, etc. so as to cope with such digital broadcasting contents. In the near future, package software to be used for those apparatuses are also expected to appear on the market. The most attractive advantage of such digital broadcasting and digital recording apparatuses is that no or almost no quality degradation is recognized in the respective processes of sending/recording/reproducing. And accordingly, a serious problem comes to arise from such the advantage of those digital apparatuses; a lot of illegal copies are generated from the high quality digital information of originals with use of those apparatuses and sold where the copyright holders do not know, so that no profit is returned to the copyright holders.

In order to solve the problem, U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,454 discloses a method for adding 2-bit copy control information to every information item. According to this method, the operation of a recording apparatus is controlled so that any one of the three choices “Copy Never”, “Copy Free”, and “one generation of copies is permitted” is selected. The recording apparatus does not work when “Copy Never” is set and starts recording when “Copy Free” is set.

If “Copy Never” is set for the copy control information when in broadcasting, a problem might arise; for example, when the user has a visitor while watching broadcast contents, the user might miss the contents and have no means for watching them later. The official gazette of JP-A 149417/2000 discloses a method for solving this problem by means of “Temporary Recording” even when “Copy Never” is set for the copy control information. This is a method for recording physically the desired information on a recording medium once, then the user is enabled to watch the reproduced information for a predetermined period, for example, for just 90 minutes and the information is erased after that. This limit time is called as “retention period”. In other words, the method disables the information to be stored for a long time and used in other ways; it just enables the broadcast content to be watched only for 90 minutes, which is equivalent to the price. This method can solve the above-described inconvenience of the user, since the recorded information is not stored for a long time, so that the copyright holder's profit can be protected. The “Temporary Recording” is often set in a hard disk recorder built in the receiver due to the characteristics.

Each of the methods disclosed in the conventional techniques described above premises that one recording/reproducing apparatus has one recording/reproducing circuit. Actually, however, there will appear on the market such the recording/reproducing apparatuses referred to as so-called double deck apparatuses will often have a plurality of recording/reproducing circuits in its housing so as to be used for copying and editing. If such an apparatus is used and “one generation of copies is permitted” is set for the copy control information, many copies will come to be done. This results in disadvantages for the copyright holders. And, no document has mentioned this problem so far.

Under such circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide means that keep the original rules related to such the copying and an apparatus that employs such the means even after an apparatus provided with a plurality of recording/reproducing circuits appears on the market.

In order to achieve the above object, the digital information recording apparatus of the present invention comprises a plurality of recording circuits, each having a plurality of recording media enabled to record inputted digital information. And, the recording apparatus of the present invention is configured so that the number of media enabled to record digital information is limited only to a predetermined number when the copy control information added to the inputted digital information indicates a limit of copying.

The digital information outputting apparatus of the present invention outputs digital information to a plurality of external information recording apparatuses. The digital information outputting apparatus includes an authenticating circuit that authenticates respective information recording apparatuses and detects the total number of recording media mounted in the apparatuses, as well as an output controlling circuit that controls output of digital information to the information recording apparatuses. When the copy control information added to the subject digital information indicates a limit of copying and the total number of recording media mounted in the external information recording apparatuses detected by the authenticating circuit exceeds the predetermined number of permitted recording media, the output of the digital information to some of the information recording apparatuses is disabled.

In another configuration, the digital information recording apparatus of the present invention includes a plurality of recording circuits, each having a plurality of recording media enabled to record digital information. And, the digital information recording apparatus is configured so that the copy control information added to inputted digital information indicates a limit of copying, the plurality of recording circuits are enabled to record the digital information once on the plurality of recording media, then at least one of said plurality of recording media is enabled to reproduce the digital information; reproduction from other media are disabled.

In still another configuration, the digital information recording apparatus of the present invention includes a plurality of recording circuits, each having a plurality of recording media enabled to record digital information. And, the apparatus is configured so as to enable only one of the plurality of recording circuits to record the digital information on only one recording medium when the copy control information added to the inputted digital information indicates a limit of copying.

In still another configuration, the digital information recording apparatus of the present invention includes a plurality of recording circuits, each having a plurality of recording media enabled to record digital information. And, the apparatus is configured so as to enable the plurality of recording circuits to record inputted digital information once on the plurality of recording media, then only one of the plurality of media is enabled to reproduce the recorded information recorded when the copy control information added to the inputted digital information indicates a move of digital information of which copying is disabled.

Furthermore, the digital information recording apparatus of the present invention, when the copy control information added to the inputted digital information indicates a limit of copying, enables digital information to be recorded only on the recording media within a predetermined number; reproduction from other media is disabled.

The digital information recording apparatus of the present invention, when the copy control information added to the inputted digital information indicates a limit of copying, limits the number of copies of the digital information within a predetermined number.

These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing wherein.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a whole digital information sending/receiving/recording system to which the present invention applies;

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