Ask Lemmy

Update: Thank you guys on this, want 100% sure what to do, but overall clear communication of conditions is probably the best way to go.

For the different medias we’ll have a “shit to mint condition” or STM for short: for Vinyls, CDs and of course Cassettes. For those medias that are under like a 3/5 we use restorative methods like normal cleaning and deoxidation. If we do end up in a situation where we need to restore a cassette beyond our capabilities it’ll be marked 1/5 to 2/5 and sold cheaper with reference to a cassette restoration service or a guide on restoring them themselves, which may include info to replace tapes if they so wish. anything way past recovery / not worth recovery can be used as up-cycle arts for local artists or in house (basically just us messing about haha)

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Ok, so we’re planning on opening a music+Alternative store in the near future and one of the medias were wanting to stock are cassettes especially since they're becoming more popular. However to anyone who knows about cassette tapes, they are extremely susceptible to yk. dying

While our stock atm is small, we already got one that is completely fucked on one side of the tape (muffled to no audio in one ear on both A and B sides) effectively the cassette is not good for sale. We’ve looked over some posts and some say to replace the tape and re-record the album, however they're all personal collectors, not sale. While the tape is dead, it’s not authentic or original if it’s repaired or well, realistically tape being replaced. If it was our personal collection no worries! But this is marked for sale. Maybe if it’s marked as “repaired” or something? Idk how other music stores handle this.

So long story short, would it be ethical to replace the tape and re-record the album and keep or for sale (and also marking it as repaired)? Or take the L and keep for our personal collection? We’re leaning on the latter, but if were over thinking things lmk thx