Cloud storage is great until your vendor goes out of business
Nine PBS, a public television station in St. Louis, Missouri, has won a court order requiring data centre firm Iron Mountain to help it recover a 70-year archive of cultural material that became inaccessible after its cloud storage provider collapsed. The station sued Iron Mountain in July after it allegedly refused to release data belonging to Nine PBS but hosted on behalf of the now-defunct cloud provider Open Source Storage (OSS), with which Iron Mountain held the contract rather than the station itself. The case highlights the risks broadcasters and other organisations face when relying on third-party vendors to safeguard irreplaceable archives.
The dispute began in March, when OSS informed Nine PBS it would not renew its contract and cut off access immediately rather than giving the usual 30-day grace period. The station briefly regained assurance from OSS's new owner in April that the archive, which includes decades of TV shows, videos and photographs documenting St Louis's history, remained safe, but access problems resumed after that owner departed the company. Following a hearing this week, a judge ordered Iron Mountain to cooperate with Nine PBS in retrieving the data and directed the station to find a third-party vendor to extract it without affecting other OSS clients' data; a further hearing will follow if complications arise. Iron Mountain maintains it has acted appropriately throughout, while commentators note the episode underscores the value of the "3-2-1" backup rule — three copies of data, on two different media, with one stored offsite.
In short
- Nine PBS wins court order to recover archive from defunct vendor's data
- Iron Mountain must help retrieve data despite contract dispute
- Case highlights risks of relying solely on third-party cloud storage
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Nine PBS and its advocates contend that preserving 70 years of irreplaceable cultural material should override contractual technicalities between Iron Mountain and a failed vendor. Iron Mountain, as the actual custodian of this data and a large, solvent firm, bears responsibility for working constructively to prevent permanent loss of important historical archives. The company's initial refusal appears to prioritise rigid legal positions over the opportunity to safeguard material of genuine cultural significance.
The case against
Iron Mountain's position rests on principled grounds: its contract was with OSS, not Nine PBS, meaning it lacked direct authority to unilaterally release data without proper legal procedures. Allowing data custodians to decide which clients' circumstances warrant exceptions would undermine the contractual certainty and data security all clients depend upon. Proper protocol—through courts and formal authorisation—protects all parties fairly and lawfully, rather than based on sympathetic narratives.
Explained simply
Cloud storage means keeping files on remote computer systems run by another company, rather than on equipment owned by the organisation itself. It is widely used because it can be cheaper and easier to expand than maintaining private servers, but access depends on the provider and the contracts behind the service.
Nine PBS is a public television station serving the St Louis area. Its archive contains decades of local programmes, video and photographs, making it a record of the region’s history as well as material that may be difficult or impossible to replace.
Iron Mountain operates data centres, which house the physical equipment on which digital services run. The dispute illustrates how several companies can be involved in storing data, and why organisations with important records often consider backups, clear exit arrangements and ways to recover files if a supplier closes.