Facepalm: Entrusting critical systems to external tech companies can be dangerous because a provider might suddenly shut down or stop responding. Nine PBS is currently learning this lesson, along with the importance of maintaining additional backups, after its cloud storage provider apparently went out of business and left more than 50TB of archival data inaccessible.
Nine PBS in St. Louis sued Iron Mountain Data Centers after spending much of this year attempting to regain access to more than 50TB of archival data. The station's cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), apparently ceased operating, while infrastructure containing the station's files remained housed at an Iron Mountain data center in Denver.
Correction, story update (August 17): An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Open Source Storage as a data center and stated that Iron Mountain owned OSS. OSS was Nine PBS' cloud storage provider and separately housed infrastructure at an Iron Mountain data center in Denver. Iron Mountain's facility did not shut down or change ownership. The story has been corrected and updated with details from the August 12 court hearing (more about this below).
According to public media outlet Current, the station began entrusting the massive trove of data, which includes 70 years of broadcast history, to a company described in court filings as "OSS predecessor" in 2019. Nine PBS renewed its contract each year, even after its partner changed its name to Open Source Storage, until February 2026, when OSS stopped responding to attempts to discuss another renewal.
Despite the contract's 30-day grace period, OSS abruptly cut off access to the archive on March 6 without offering the station an opportunity to renew. Upon investigation, Nine PBS discovered that OSS was delinquent with the Colorado Secretary of State and its website had shut down. The station later learned that OSS housed the infrastructure containing its data at an Iron Mountain colocation facility in Denver. Iron Mountain did not own or operate OSS.
The runaround became more confusing from there. After demanding that Iron Mountain preserve and return the archive, Nine PBS sued OSS and its purported president, Charles Wells, in the St. Louis Circuit Court on April 16, but paused proceedings after James Tramel, a "managing partner" of an unnamed group that acquired OSS, confirmed that the data was safe.
Even stranger, Nine PBS lost contact with Tramel after about a month and eventually received an automatic email stating that he was no longer connected to OSS. He later claimed that he had been "defrauded" into buying OSS, after which ownership and operations of the cloud storage company reportedly reverted to its previous owners. Nine PBS subsequently resumed its legal action and obtained a ruling confirming that the station owned its data and that OSS should facilitate its transfer to another provider.
Nine PBS then returned to Iron Mountain seeking access to the archive. According to the station's complaint, Iron Mountain initially indicated that it would cooperate before declining to release the material because OSS owned the physical infrastructure housing the data. Nine PBS filed a separate lawsuit against Iron Mountain in Denver in July, seeking to prevent the data from being deleted and to establish a way to retrieve it.
Iron Mountain says its role in the dispute has been limited to providing physical colocation infrastructure, while OSS owned and controlled the servers and other hardware. The company told TechSpot that it never had access to Nine PBS' data and could not grant a third party access to OSS equipment without authorization or a court order.
"Throughout this process, we have been transparent with Nine PBS about our role in this dispute, that we do not have access to their data, and we have made consistent efforts to help them resolve the issue," an Iron Mountain spokesperson told TechSpot. The dispute moved closer to a resolution during an August 12 hearing. Denver District Court Judge Eric Elliff ruled that Nine PBS owns the archival material and ordered Iron Mountain to cooperate with the station in retrieving it.
The court gave Nine PBS 30 days to identify a qualified third party capable of accessing the OSS infrastructure and extracting the station's files without accessing data belonging to other OSS customers. Nine PBS will be responsible for costs associated with the recovery, including applicable storage charges, and must protect Iron Mountain against liability stemming from damage to the equipment or improper access to other customers' data. The parties are expected to report their progress to the court in September.
The ruling effectively provides Nine PBS with a path to recover the archive while recognizing the unusual technical and legal situation: the station owns the data, OSS controls the infrastructure on which it resides, and Iron Mountain operates the facility housing that infrastructure.
While the circumstances behind OSS's disappearance and apparent ownership turmoil remain mysterious, Nine PBS's struggles serve as another reminder of the importance of redundant backups. South Korea's government discovered this late last year after losing 858TB in a data center fire.
Nine PBS lost access to 50TB of archives after its cloud storage provider vanished
