Nine PBS, a public broadcasting station in St. Louis, initiated legal action against Iron Mountain Data Centers seeking 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), had contracted with Iron Mountain’s Denver facility to house the data but subsequently ceased operations, leaving Nine PBS unable to retrieve its materials.
The disputed archive contains materials of regional and historical significance, including the station’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, documentation of East St. Louis history, records related to The Great Flood of 1993, and more than 11,000 files. Nine PBS characterizes most of this content as unique and irreplaceable. The station’s contract with OSS expired on March 6, and Nine PBS indicates it lost access to the data shortly thereafter despite contractual provisions allowing 30 days for data retrieval following contract termination.
Iron Mountain contends it lacks the technical ability to provide Nine PBS with access, asserting that the physical servers and hardware belong to OSS and that granting access without proper authorization would violate data privacy protocols and potentially expose confidential information belonging to other OSS clients. A judge previously issued a temporary order preventing Iron Mountain from deleting or modifying the data. In a recent hearing, the court directed Iron Mountain to hand over the physical devices containing the data and instructed Nine PBS to identify a third party, potentially a former OSS employee, to assist with data retrieval within 30 days. Nine PBS indicated it has already been in communication with a former OSS employee willing to assist. Both parties are required to provide progress updates by September 14.
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