What is the equivalent of “dead tree copy” for CDs?

Question

The expression "dead tree copy" is a slightly pejorative way of referring to a (physical) printed book, as opposed to an ebook.

I was wondering if there is a similar expression that could be applied to CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and other physical media for music, movies or games.

Answer 1

Another idea: you could use "dead dinosaur copy" by analogy to "dead tree copy". (Discs are made of plastic which is made from petrochemicals which come from dinosaurs.)

Answer 2

I always refer to CDs, DVDs, etc as physical media. But that's more plainly descriptive, and I'm not sure it's a good analog for dead tree copy. The term seems to be used fairly commonly to describe the "outdated physical form" concept:

The Decline and Fall of Physical Media Retailing: A Timeline

Are you finished with physical media?

Why I Already Miss Physical Media

Answer 3

You could go for "hard copy". For something like a document, a soft copy is a digital file and a hard copy is one on paper (i.e. something that you can hold because it is "hard"). For music or a movie, I don't see any other interpretation of what a "hard copy" would mean other than a disc (although the nitpicky might object on the basis that a disc still stores digital files)

Answer 4

For music, you could refer to having it "on vinyl", i.e. on a record, but many people would not consider that pejorative. If you specifically want to be demeaning about it, you might refer to the "8-track edition" of something; I don't know of anyone who considers the 8-track format decent.

For the other things (movies & games) there really isn't a "baseline" format like the 'dead-tree edition' of a printed book that's been around essentially forever; about the best you can do is refer to some specifically outdated format like LaserDisc.