I dunno what storage conditions are best, but I keep 'em in the dark, in a climate-controlled room. since whatever stuff is on 'em probably becomes obsolete after 10 years, it's no big deal if they become unreadable on some machines or new OS. like this site is based on sales of poser items to hobbyists, for example. if you've ever used poser, you know that stuff created in '96 for poser is not likely to be useable now (totally obsolete), and the same goes for whatever images created in poser, or for any apps thay were being used in '96. regarding copies of movies, I dunno if anybody had any consumer dvd burners in '96. if it's just music CDs, I suppose those have some sentimental value. but one can probably re-buy those from itunes if the old CD goes bad.