Since you're Windows, and if your player supports WMA, I strongly recommend using it to save a lot of storage space and retain quality. You can rip to WMA with or without copy protection - of course I don't know why you'd enable that option for your own use.
The only drawback is that I don't know of any CD players or car stereos that can play WMA (most modern ones can handle MP3) - but I don't keep up with that, so they may exist now.