A Denver District Court judge ruled Wednesday that Iron Mountain Data Centers must release physical hardware to Nine PBS, a St. Louis-based public broadcasting affiliate, to help the station recover 50 terabytes of archival data. The station filed suit against the data center provider on July 28 after its primary cloud storage vendor, Open Source Storage (OSS), ceased operations and became unresponsive. Nine PBS is attempting to retrieve 70 years of records, including unique coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1993 Mississippi River floods.
The dispute began after Nine PBS's contract with OSS ended on March 6. The station reported that it was unable to renew its agreement or access its files because OSS had entered delinquency status with the Colorado Secretary of State. While a St. Louis court previously granted Nine PBS a default judgment stating it had an "immediate right to possess the data," Iron Mountain initially refused to grant access. The data center provider stated it only had a contract with OSS, not Nine PBS, and that providing unauthorized access to third-party hardware could violate privacy protocols and expose data belonging to other OSS clients.
Under the Wednesday ruling, Nine PBS has 30 days to retrieve the data using a third party, such as a former OSS employee, to ensure the process does not corrupt or expose information belonging to other customers. Iron Mountain stated it acts only as a physical infrastructure provider—supplying power, networking, and space—and does not have direct access to the data stored on its clients' servers. Nine PBS officials stated they are already in contact with a former OSS worker who is willing to assist with the recovery process.
The scale of the dispute centers on 50 terabytes of data, which equates to roughly 50,000 gigabytes. For a typical household, this represents more than 100 times the storage capacity of a standard modern laptop. Nine PBS has already engaged in two separate legal actions across two states—Missouri and Colorado—to secure these assets. The station also informed the court it would bear the "reasonable costs" associated with the physical retrieval, showing the financial burden placed on a public entity when a service provider fails.
The ruling sets a procedural framework for how companies can recover digital assets when a middleman vendor goes defunct. It clarifies that physical data center providers may require court orders to bypass standard privacy protocols to avoid liability for exposing other clients' data. If the retrieval is successful by the September 14 update deadline, it may provide a roadmap for other organizations facing "ghosting" by cloud providers. However, if the data is encrypted or the third-party retrieval fails, the station faces further legal hearings and the potential permanent loss of its archives.
Both parties are required to provide a status update to the court by September 14. If technical complications such as encryption prevent the recovery of the 11,000 files, the judge noted that an additional hearing will be scheduled to determine next steps.