Hello Kitty wrote, “I wasnt planning on buying most of those cds anyway” (bold added by me)
If you weren’t planning on buying any of them, then you might have a heter (I’m not paskening, just saying that there do seem to be heterim out there). But, you said “most” implying that “some” you might actually buy. If this is the case then you have a much bigger shaila if you would have paid for a CD but instead are copying it. As oyveykidsthesedays said, you have to be very honest with yourself. This is a very hard thing when there is a strong negia to save money. Kol kula tzricha bedika!
I haven’t read the licenses recently, but the way I understand it the way apushatayid explained it, that owning a CD gives you the right to use it once at a time. You can listen to it on your CD player at home at 8:00, in the car at 9:00, and on your iPod at 10:00. But it cannot be played twice at the same time. If just one person will be using the CD then it’s no problem to make many copies as long as you are listening to one at a time. It might be a problem if a family buys a CD and one family member is listening to it in the car, while another listens on the computer. I once heard b’shaim a posek that for a family living to together they don’t have to worry about this if you can reasonably assume that most of the time it will only be listened to once, and if not, ask yourself if the family would otherwise buy a 2nd CD or not. Think of it as a book, if 2 family members want to read a book they would take turns. In some cases they may buy a 2nd copy of the book but in other cases they won’t. If you feel that you wouldn’t buy a 2nd copy of the CD then you might have a heter to have 2 family members listening at once in different places. If one gets married or goes to yeshiva the situation may be different. In the case of a book, if someone goes away to yeshiva, if he takes the book with him then his family will no longer have access to it so there is a good chance that he (or the family) would buy a 2nd copy.
Either way, I see the this as 2 shailas:
1) is it gezaila?
2) is it a violation of dina d’malchusa dina?