CD and DVD Owners Finding Techno-RotI remember when CDs came out back in the 80s, and we were all sold on the idea that this new medium would be a) as high fidelity as high fidelity gets, and b) virtually indestructible. Well, the fidelity is pretty good (although, feel free to argue with an audiophile about that one), but it turns out the lifetime of a CD (and now DVDs) isn't quite as long as the record companies would have had us believe.

It quickly became apparent that, like vinyl before it, a scratch could lead to a horrible skip, or, in extreme cases, render the thing dead. "C'est la vie," we thought, "as long as we're careful with the things, we can at least rest easy that they'll last us the rest of our lives."

It turns out this might not be the case - research by Media Sciences (a Massachusetts laboratory that tests CDs) shows that many CDs are actually rotting, either due to poor manufacturing processes, heat, or by inadvertent bad handling by users. And not bad handling like the old 'don't scratch' bad handling, but things I'd have thought were perfectly safe: stacking CDs being the main culprit, it would seem (I mean, you buy CDRs in stacks, why not store them that way?), but also by storing in your CDs in too warm an environment. Likewise, most people think the clear side is the side to worry about, when, in fact, it's the label side that's more fragile and will more quickly cause skips should it be damaged in any way.

A bit of public education might be in order, methinks, but what chance do you think there is the record companies will alert consumers to the perils of poor disc handling when there's the chance to sell them the same disc in 5 or 10 years time?
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