An information processing apparatus and method for enabling efficient content download and transfer processing operations are provided. In downloading content, a content identifier thereof is acquired, a particular piece of content subject to transfer to an external device is identified on the basis of the acquired content identifier, the identified content is retrieved from a data storage block, and the retrieved content is transferred to the external device or written to an information recording medium, so that the processing of content downloading, the processing of content transfer to an external device and content writing to an information recording medium such as CD can be executed as a sequence of processing operations, thereby providing significantly efficient content download and content transfer or content write processing operations.