OK, the conversation here was mostly about those CDs with a rentel agreement, but the majarity of CDs dont have that rentel agreement it just says do not copy, what about those CDs? can I copy those for myself? If according to halacha I can is it still unmentchlich to do so?
In my opinion, no problem of mentchlichkeit. Whether it would still be a problem of g’neiva would depend on whether or not there is a t’nai, what the intent of the t’nai is, and whether the t’nai itself works (machlokes haposkim). Obviously, if it were to be technical g’neiva, it wouldn’t be mentchlichkeit either! One could then argue whether it’s mentchlichkeit on the part of the producer. To be dan them l’caf z’chus, I would point out that they have lost many sales to illegal copying and are therefore quite frustrated, and that some people have availed themselves of the loophole pointed out by Niazik to obtain huge hard drives full of hundreds of albums of music without paying for them.