I had one of those moments of consumer rage this morning, when I realized that it’s now virtually impossible to buy blank CD-Rs with nothing on the label side, meaning that if you want to buy some CD-Rs to back up your data or record some music, they will almost certainly feature branding from TDK, Memorex, Sony, Maxxel or some other company. You used to be able to find the kind of discs I’m looking for — you could call them generic CD-Rs — virtually anywhere, but after searching J & R, Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, DataVision and even a few shady camera/electronics boutiques along Fifth Avenue, I came up with nothing. My guess is that the bigger CD-R manufacturers have shoved the smaller players from the store shelves, or there might be something going on with the RIAA here — maybe it’s easier to prevent the illegal copying of music CDs when the supply of generic CD-Rs is less plentiful? Who knows, but I’m tired of everything being branded when it simply isn’t necessary.
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