PBS Affiliate Sues Over Lost Access to 70 Years of Archives
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Nine PBS is fighting to recover 50TB of irreplaceable community data after its cloud provider went defunct and a data center refused access.
Nine PBS, a St. Louis affiliate, has filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court against Iron Mountain Data Centers to regain access to 50TB of data, as first reported by Ars Technica. The archives include over 11,000 files spanning 70 years, including coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the history of East St. Louis, and the 1993 Great Flood. Ars Technica noted that The Denver Post reported in July that most of this data is considered unique and irreplaceable.
The dispute began after Nine PBS's contract with its cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), ended on March 6. The station claims it lost access to its data upon expiration and discovered that OSS had ceased operations and was listed as delinquent by the Colorado Secretary of State. James Tramel, described in the complaint as a managing partner who acquired OSS assets, reportedly told Nine PBS that Iron Mountain held the data before later claiming he had been defrauded into the acquisition and ceased communication.
Iron Mountain has refused to release the data, arguing to Ars Technica that it provides only physical infrastructure and does not have access to the data on servers owned by its customers. The company stated that granting access without a court order would breach its contract with OSS and potentially expose other clients' confidential data.
Following a default judgment in St. Louis Circuit Court, a judge recently ruled that Iron Mountain must hand over the physical devices containing the data. According to reporting from Current via Ars Technica, Nine PBS has 30 days to employ a third party, such as a former OSS employee, to retrieve the materials without compromising other clients' data. Iron Mountain and Nine PBS are required to provide updates to the court by September 14.