Why can't I remove segments from the tape and reuse this space? (4044401)

Why can't I remove segments from the tape and reuse this space?

Symptoms:
My tape contains many old segments that have reached retirement age and I would like to allow them to be over written. How can this be done?

Instead of allowing random access to data as hard disk drives do, tape drives only allow for sequential access of data. Sequential access means that a group of elements is accessed in a predetermined, ordered sequence. Sequential access is the only way of accessing the data if it is on a tape. Because of the way the data is stored it is not possible to erase any data between the beginning of the tape and the EOD (End of Data Marker)

Workaround:
Datacopy the segments that you wish to keep to a new media and then blank the tape for reuse.