An automatic performance apparatus which can make it difficult to discriminate between music contents which require copyright protection and music contents which do not require copyright protection. An encrypted content file distributed by a contents distributing site via a network is received, and copyright protection information indicative of whether or not the received encrypted content file requires copyright protection is acquired. The received encrypted content file is decoded to generate a decoded content file. When the acquired copyright protection information indicates that copyright protection is required, a storage medium stores the encrypted content file, or a re-encrypted content file generated by re-encrypting the decoded content file by an encrypting method different from an encrypting method used to obtain the encrypted content file. On the other hand, when the acquired copyright protection information indicates that copyright protection is not required, the storage medium stores the decoded content file.