The apparatus controls access to content such as software, music or movies stored in digital form on a storage medium such as a magneto-optical [MO] disc. The apparatus comprises an MO disk drive (120), MPEG2 decoder (130), and MO disk (140) as physical elements. Information for identifying these physical elements (identifying information) is allocated to each of these physical elements. License information, indicating whether access to the content is to be allowed or not, is recorded on the disk. Access to the content recorded on the disk is controlled based on the license information and the identifying information.