From a strictly halachic standpoint, it is Muttar to copy Cd’s. It is YOUR property, and Halacha doesn’t recognize an idea or intelectual concept as something which can be copyrighted, and thus it can’t ever be considered ‘stolen’.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Historically, Rabbonim *have* issued “copyrights” to publishers of seforim in the past. For example, if someone put through the effort to have a Shas printed in a town, then no one in that area could print another Shas for a certain number of years. This was done to encourage people to print seforim and put the effort into publishing them. If this was done for a work that we would consider “public domain” (such as the Gemara, the Rambam, etc.), then certainly it would have been done for newly created works.
While the historical precedent doesn’t cover copyright as we know it today, to say that Rabbonim did not recognize the idea of intellectual property is just wrong.
The Wolf