An optical disc recording technology that utilizes specially coated recordable CD and DVD media to produce laser-etched labels with text or graphics, as opposed to stick-on labels and printable discs.
The Light Scribe method uses the laser similar to the way that data is burned to the disc; a grey scale image of the label is etched to the top side of the disc. The discs come in many colors: monotone (the original), red, green, blue, yellow, and orange backgrounds.

The purpose of Light Scribe is to allow users to create direct-to-disc labels (as opposed to stick-on labels), using their optical disc writer. Special discs and a compatible disc writer are required. Before or after burning data to the read-side of the disc, the user simply turns the medium over and inserts it with the label side down. The drive's laser then etches into the label side in such a way that an image is produced.