A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.Often, it looks like a coffee stain—a noticeable discoloration that for whatever reason you can't get rid of. Sometimes, it looks like tiny pin pricks on the surface of a compact disc. And there are other times when the whole thing changes color. In any case, when you run into what's known as disc rot, you're out a great album or an interesting movie.The eventual decay of optical media is a serious situation, whether you're a digital archivist or simply someone who wants to watch a movie on a weird format like a Laserdisc.Let's dive head first into the decay.
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— A spokesperson for EMI, commenting on research done on the permanence of compact discs by the record label Nimbus in 1988. Nimbus, the first CD manufacturer in the UK, said that it had done some research into the disc rot issue and found that most discs will self-destruct after between eight and 10 years. The company's findings, which went against prevailing theories of the time that CDs were indestructible, blamed the problems on improper dyes that reduced the quality of the discs. As highlighted by the quote, record companies were at first skeptical, but Nimbus' concerns about disc integrity turned out to be important and true.Read the rest over at Motherboard."I suppose that if you ran a knife over a disc it would not do it any good, and you might destroy it if you stubbed out of cigar on it. But you could pour jam on it without causing any damage."