Nine PBS, a St. Louis public broadcasting affiliate, filed a lawsuit against Iron Mountain Data Centers on July 28 seeking access to approximately 50 terabytes of television programming and archival materials spanning seven decades. The station’s cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), had contracted with Iron Mountain’s Denver facility to house the data but became unresponsive after Nine PBS’ contract ended on March 6. The archived materials include coverage of significant regional events and over 11,000 files that Nine PBS describes as largely irreplaceable.
When Nine PBS attempted to retrieve its data following the contract expiration, the station discovered that OSS had become delinquent with the Colorado Secretary of State and ceased operations. Despite Nine PBS obtaining a default judgment against OSS in St. Louis Circuit Court affirming its right to possess the data, Iron Mountain declined to release the materials, contending that it only provides physical infrastructure and cannot access data stored on servers owned by its customers without authorization.
In a Wednesday hearing, a judge ruled that Iron Mountain must hand over any physical devices containing the data to Nine PBS. The court stipulated that Nine PBS must identify a qualified third party, potentially including a former OSS employee, to retrieve the information within 30 days while ensuring no data belonging to other OSS clients is compromised or corrupted. Nine PBS indicated it is already in contact with a former OSS employee willing to assist in the recovery effort. Iron Mountain stated it has acted responsibly and transparently throughout the dispute, while Nine PBS characterized the court’s decision as establishing a viable path forward for preserving the region’s archival materials. Both parties are required to provide updates by September 14.
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