Nine PBS Sues Iron Mountain Over Lost 50TB Archive
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- Nine PBS lost access to 50TB of archival data spanning 70 years of programming after its cloud storage vendor, Open Source Storage (OSS), went defunct and cut off access despite a 30-day retrieval window still being active.
- OSS was listed as delinquent under the Colorado Secretary of State, with its website taken down, and had been storing Nine PBS's data using Iron Mountain's physical infrastructure.
- James Tramel, who claimed to represent a group that acquired OSS, communicated with the station for about a month before ending contact and stating he had been "defrauded" into the acquisition, with ownership reverting to prior owners.
- A Colorado court ruled that Nine PBS held all rights to access its stored data and ordered OSS to facilitate transfer to a new vendor, but Iron Mountain initially agreed to release the data then reversed course, claiming OSS owned it.
- Nine PBS is now suing Iron Mountain to ensure the data is not deleted, with VP and CCO Leah Freeman describing the archive as "70 years of our organization's history."
- The article notes Nine PBS apparently had no independent backup of its archive, violating the standard 3-2-1 backup rule, a vulnerability that has put irreplaceable public media history at risk of permanent loss.
Why it matters: A public broadcaster entrusted with 70 years of cultural and historical programming ended up with no verified backup and no functioning cloud provider — meaning decades of taxpayer-funded public media could vanish if Iron Mountain deletes the tapes while litigation proceeds, underscoring how contractual access rights mean nothing when the vendor simply disappears.
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