My friend thinks you should place your CD’s on a table or a desk face up (ie the graphic side up) because doing it the other way is more damaging for the CD. Please tell me he is wrong…
…in its case.
I have to go with ZenBeam - I have over 400 CDs that have always been kept in the case - exactly ONE got scratched because the little ‘fingers’ that hold the CD to the jewel case broke off and scratched it. My wife who has about 30 or so CDs and keeps them laying everywhere and as a result suffers about a 10% failure rate on hers due to scratches.
I’ll just chime in to say, “Ditto.” ESPECIALLY CD-Rs.
Well, I’ve heard that scratches on the top of CD-R’s are worse than ones on the bottom, but I don’t have a cite for that.
Personally, I usually leave the CD’s label down. Seems safer to me. Downside is that if you forget about them, the layer of dust forms on the wrong side. 
I’ll agree with everyone else on this: CD’s should be kept in their cases.
However, if you are not going to do that, it is better to leave them:
[ul]
[li]Shiny side up, if they are music CD’s or really high quality (ie. expensive) CDR’s.[/li][li]Shiny side down, if they are most CDR’s[/li][/ul]
The reason for leaving CDR’s shiny side down is that a scratch on the plastic over the shiny side (readable side) is usually not too bad because the error checking algorithms used to encode data or music on a CD will recover most, if not all, of the scratched out data. You can also repair CD’s that get slightly scratched.
However, cheap CDR’s (most CDR’s) have a shiny coating just sprayed on the non-readable side, and if you scratch that off, the laser goes right through the CD, and it is completely unreadable. Goodbye CD.
What IS a CD-R? And how’s it different from a normal CD? Why would you want it? Can you play it in a discman? Sorry I’m a bit out of the loop as you can see…:o
CD-R == CD Recordable (via computer). Especially popular among those lacking sufficient funds to support their tastes in music. Instead of little pits that are molded into the plastic like on normal CD’s, there is a layer of pigment or something that the laser burns away when it’s being written. It’s a neat trick, because even though it’s a completely different way of making the CD, it still works in a normal CD player (or Discman). Indistinguishable from magic indeed.
The reverse side of the painted cd holds the data. The laser shines through the clear plastic to the underside of the painted surface. Scratches on the clear side might create a digital glitch that the player averages out. A scratch on the painted side will result in a trashed cd. The back side of the painted surface being the recordable medium. The recordable medium is a dye. This is for CDR or CDRW medium. The regular purchased cd is slightly different, but the painted side must be left fully intact.
Holy Moley, news to me. I was pretty close to buying one of these doo-dads, to Xfer my vinyl over. How viable IS a CDR, if it’s impregnated in paint?? Does anyone have an idea of how fragile a media it is, opposed to a regularly pitted CD? I mean… my vinyl will play for decades, but is cumbersome as hell. I figured a CD-R was a great idea, but this description makes it sound a LOT like it’s a very fragile media. Any thoughts, and sorry for the Hi-Jack. 
Cartooniverse
Cartooniverse:
Frankly, I don’t care. I bought my CD-R to protect my record collection. I have a lot of rare vinyl that I would never let outta my house in a million years… this way, I can make copies to bring to parties or whatever. Plus, I play the actual records less, preserving the vinyl. I consider the CD-Rs as disposable as cassettes.
The makers of CDRs in general expect the medium to last up to a hundred years. I use a label for the tops of my CDRs. Pull off the label and the film on top peels right off. Use only markers made for CDRs to write on the surface. Some markers can chemicaly react over time and the media is ruined. I’m archiving pictures and live recordings that are deteriating.
Well, if you want CD-R info overload, try the CD-R FAQ, which includes this nugget:
(bolding mine)
I was pretty close with “pigment or something”. But other sections of that document say that the expected life of a recorded CD-R is 75-100 years. So it’s not as risky as I mad it sound.