Nine PBS Fights To Recover 70 Years Of Historic Footage After Cloud Storage Provider Allegedly Cuts Off Access – AfroTech
What happens when you suddenly lose access to the cloud? That question is at the center of a lawsuit involving Nine PBS, the St. Louis, MO-based PBS member station, and Open Source Storage (OSS), a cloud storage provider that allegedly cut off access to a massive collection of historical footage spanning more than 70 years.
Cloud storage has become an essential tool for organizations and individuals to preserve everything from everyday business files to digital archives, allowing massive amounts of data to be stored on remote servers. Third-party providers host, manage, and secure the data, which can be accessed from virtually anywhere with an internet connection, according to Google Cloud.
However, it is not without risk.
How Nine PBS’ Cloud Storage Deal Led To A Lawsuit
In its lawsuit, filed on July 28, 2026, in a Denver District Court, Nine PBS claims it abruptly lost access to about 50TB of archived data after OSS ceased operations without warning, news outlet Current reports. The collection reportedly includes footage documenting events such as the history of East St. Louis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Great Flood of 1993.
OSS is said to have relied on information management company Iron Mountain to house the data. After OSS became defunct, Nine PBS’ files were effectively stranded at an Iron Mountain data center. Iron Mountain is the target of the lawsuit and has reportedly declined to release the materials directly to the station, citing OSS’ ownership of the physical servers where the data is stored.
A judge agreed with Nine PBS during a preliminary hearing the week of Aug. 10, according to PCMag. However, Iron Mountain says recovering and returning the archived data is more complicated than people realize.
“Iron Mountain has acted appropriately and responsibly at every step to safeguard customer data and honor our contractual commitments to OSS,” a spokesperson told Ars Technica in a statement on Aug. 14. “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.”
Nine PBS’ Cloud Storage Agreement With OSS
Nine PBS began using OSS’ unnamed predecessor in 2019 for hardware, software, and cloud storage services, renewing its agreement annually, and then eventually continued its contract with OSS, Current reports. When the station reached out in February 2026 to discuss renewing its contract before its March expiration, OSS failed to respond or communicate that service would end.
Despite contract terms giving Nine PBS 30 days to retrieve its data following termination, OSS allegedly cut off access without warning on March 6, per Current. Nine PBS later discovered OSS’ website was defunct and the company was listed as delinquent with the Colorado Secretary of State, the outlet notes.
The station says its representatives ultimately felt they had “no choice but to file this lawsuit.”
“We are committed to ensuring we can recover and restore full access to this valuable content, which Nine PBS rightfully owns, as it holds significant historical importance for St. Louis,” Nine PBS VP and CCO Leah Freeman told Current.
In the judge’s ruling on Aug. 12, Iron Mountain was required to give Nine PBS the “physical devices holding the data,” the outlet reported. Nine PBS was also directed to use a third party, such as a former OSS worker, to retrieve the data within 30 days. The retrieval was to be done without sharing or corrupting the data of OSS’ other clients.
Nine PBS and Iron Mountain must report any updates by Sept. 14.
