Unlike the take the front door off the hinges method described a couple times (Which I’ve yet to try), your method of peeling the adhesive label works, but only with WEA (Warner, Elektra, Asylum) and Columbia/Sony labels. I challenge anyone (including her) to say it’s simple with Universal / BMG CDs.
I’ve tried this method and got a broken/ripped fingernail as a result! It’s not that my nails are brittle but they just aren’t as hard as most others, I guess. Sometimes I am able to open the CD packaging with fingernails, though, using that method; I’m just very leery of it especially after one tear that went down to the quick.
I must also echo others about the packaging of small electronics! I got a relatively inexpensive CD walkman ($30-40) and had a devil of a time getting it out of the welded shut plastic! Sometimes even regular scissors can’t cut through that stuff - I’ll have to look into the scissors/shears others have mentioned above, I guess.
Take the whole stack of filters and turn them inside out. This seems to fan them out a bit and makes it easier to pull off just one.
This is why I tend to have a small collection of cheap knives with serrated blades around me. When people hassle about it, I politely explain that it’s a tool of my trade, and go in depth about trying to open heat-sealed plastic covering fragile electronics. I’ve actually gotten knives into inner-city public schools that way, back when I was prepping for Y2K issues. Simple three-four slashes along the seams, and pull it all off. Works like a charm.
Wow. That works pretty well! Thanks! 
I especially love it when they put the instruction manual/warranty card in the top, flat section of electronics gear so when you go to cut it open, you inadvertantly cut it in half.
Here’s something I’ve found works great for DVDs and CDs: go to your local office supply place and get some letter openers, the kind that look like this. Stick that point under one corner of the packaging and slide across. This gives you a nice big opening to tear off the rest of the cellophane.
For the stickers on the edge of a DVD, if you can’t peel them, you’ll need a nice sharp knife. Just run the tip along the opening seam. This won’t harm the disc or the packaging, and it splits the stickers in half. The stickers never seem to be very well stuck down along the edge of the case, so when you open the case, peel them off from your cuts. They’ll come off in one easy piece.
Now, the security tabs inside. The best thing I’ve found for those blocky plastic ones came in a tool kit my dad gave me; it’s like a long, thin metal deal, with a tiny hook on the end, kind of like the tool a dentist uses to scrape tartar off your teeth. I stick the hook into one narrow end of the plastic block (they’re mostly hollow) and slide the shaft in almost to the other end, being careful not to cut it. Then, I pry it up like a lever, and the sticker comes off in a snap. This same tool also works great on the cellophane and the stickers, so it’s basically all I need to get my DVDs open.
My husband gave me a really cool KitchenAid garlic press for Xmas. It was in one of those damned molded, fully-welded plastic things. I got it started with my kitchen shears, then decided to “save time” by strong-arming it and just trying to rip it open. Fucking plastic slit my palm right open like a scalpel. It took several weeks to heal completely.
But for sheer overpackaging, baby toys are the worst. Shrink wrap over a cardboard box, containing a molded plastic covering over the toy and a separate cardboard backing, to which the toy is cinched with (if you’re lucky) industrial twist-ties or (if you’re not) metal-cored straps which require a wire-cutter to remove.
I did get a cool CD opener free at Barnes & Noble - like this. Of course my unsuspecting husband found it, and said to himself, “What happens if I press this par - OW!”
I’m surprised, in a sue-happy society like the US, that there haven’t been a slew of lawsuits by people injuring themselves on this type of packaging.