When it was first introduced, not too many people took to copying CDs. However, within a few years, things have changed completely and today one cannot even imagine that there was a time when no-one copied CDs. To say that millions of people all over the world today copy CDs would probably be an understatement. They copy data, audio and video onto CDs. CD burners and duplication are part and parcel of our lives right now.

Lets get down to the basics and take a look at how exactly these CDs are copied. First of all, you need a master. This is the CD that you are going to copy. Then, you need a blank CD and that will be the one that you will copy the master onto. You will of course, need the hardware on which the copying is done, which is the computer where you will need to have a CD-RW or DVD-RW drive. Just in case you have an old computer that does not have this drive, you will need to buy one and fit it in. A drive like this does not cost too much, rather, they are very reasonably priced and they are also very easy to install.

In case you are thinking of buying this drive, it might be worthwhile to get a DVD-RW drive so you can copy both DVDs and CDs. You can also set the speed with which you want your copying done. 4x is the slowest speed and 48x is the fastest. Not all drives can copy at the very fast speeds however. If your drive can do a 48x speed, your CD will just take a few minutes to be copied.

So youve got the DVD-RW or the CD-RW. Youve got the master and youve got CDs on which to copy it. Now what you need is the software. Probably the most popular software today is Nero. You also find two other software that are quite popular - Easy CD Creator and Sonic Record Now. Of course, if you look around youll probably find many more - some of them that are expensive and some that you can download for free.

After you have loaded the software onto your computer, all you have to do is to run the software and then copy the disk. What can you copy? Well, almost anything. You can copy data, audio, pictures, video...in fact so many types of media. All you have to do is to select the media from the menu that you have on your software and just burn your CD. The great thing is that it is so easy to learn and to do. Duplicating CDs is a whole lot of fun. You can use it to do so much. You can back up your files, you can save your pictures or make a CD of pictures like an album for a loved one, you can put your music on or a video clip, whatever. Whatever you choose to copy, you can.