IPOD has music on it but my laptop show empty

Hello,
We just bought a verizon netbook and it doesnt have a cd drive so at the moment i can not insert my cd that my ipod came with. I've had the ipod for a couple of years and it has a good amount of music on it but when i plug it into my netbook it says the device is empty. Is there anything i can do or do i have to go buy a cd drive to hookup to my computer?