At the time of moving a content from an e-book content receiving terminal
102 to a copyright protection medium 103, from among a plurality of usage
rules set to the content, those defined by the copyright protection
medium 103 is moved to the copyright protection medium 103 by a content
moving section 106, and those not defined by the copyright protection
medium 103 are transmitted to a usage rule management server 104 via a
communications section 105. On the other hand, at the time of moving the
content from the copyright protection medium 103 to the e-book content
receiving terminal 102, the usage rules from the copyright protection
medium 103 and the usage rules from the usage rule management server 104
are combined together. In this manner, even when a content is moved
through a copyright protection medium in a which usage rules of the
content are not fully defined therein, none of the usage rules is lost.