Nine PBS, a St. Louis public broadcasting station, initiated legal action against Iron Mountain Data Centers on July 28 seeking to regain access to approximately 50 terabytes of archived television programming and video content spanning seven decades. The station’s cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), ceased operations and became unresponsive, leaving the broadcaster unable to retrieve its data stored on servers housed within Iron Mountain’s Denver data center facility.
The disputed archive contains programming covering significant regional events and historical documentation, including coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, East St. Louis history, and The Great Flood of 1993, along with over 11,000 digital files. Nine PBS’s contract with OSS expired on March 6, and the station claims it lost access to the data despite contractual provisions allowing a 30-day retrieval period. The broadcaster subsequently obtained a default judgment against OSS in St. Louis Circuit Court establishing its right to possess the archived materials.
Iron Mountain maintained that it functions solely as a physical infrastructure provider, offering building space, network connectivity, power, and environmental controls to its customers. The company argued that because OSS owned the servers and hardware storing the data, and because Nine PBS lacked authorization from OSS, releasing the materials would violate data privacy protocols and potentially compromise confidential information belonging to other OSS clients. Iron Mountain stated it required a court order to provide access.
Following a hearing on Wednesday, a judge ruled that Iron Mountain must transfer any physical devices containing the data to Nine PBS. The court also mandated that Nine PBS identify a third party, potentially a former OSS employee, to assist with data recovery within 30 days while safeguarding other clients’ information. Nine PBS indicated it had already established contact with a former OSS worker willing to provide assistance. Both parties were directed to provide progress updates by September 14, with additional hearings to be scheduled if technical complications, such as data encryption, impede recovery efforts.
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