The image processing apparatus comprises a wavelet transform unit, a frame buffer, a quantization unit, a bit plane coding unit, an arithmetic coding unit, and a stream generating unit, and converts an original image into coded image data hierarchically by using these units. A copyright level management table manages copyright levels to be permitted to users who use the coded image data. A copyright level recording unit records copyright level information on the corresponding profile into a header or other areas of the coded image data in consideration of such factors as users and regions to be provided.