{
  "id": 757319,
  "title": "PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of data comprising 70 years of TV history after contracted cloud storage vendor goes defunct — public TV channel sues Iron Mountain data center, which hosts archival materials, to ensure preservation",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/13/pbs-broadcaster-loses-access-to-50tb-of-data-comprising-70-years-of",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-08-13T10:40:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Tom's Hardware",
    "slug": "tom-s-hardware",
    "url": "https://www.tomshardware.com/software/cloud-storage/nine-pbs-loses-access-to-70-years-of-data-after-contracted-cloud-storage-vendor-goes-defunct-public-tv-channel-sues-iron-mountain-data-center-which-hosts-archival-materials-to-ensure-preservation"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Nine PBS, a public broadcaster, is at risk of losing over 70 years of TV history and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor, Open Source Storage (OSS), went out of business. The channel had been using OSS to store 50TB of data since 2019 and intended to renew their contract, but OSS did not respond when asked to do so and cut off the station's data access even though they had 30 days to retrieve it after the contract ended. OSS was a subsidiary of Iron Mountain, a data center company. Nine PBS sent a demand letter to Iron Mountain to preserve their data and pay any costs associated with the demand. Iron Mountain did not confirm or deny that they possessed Nine PBS' data. Meanwhile, Nine PBS sued OSS and its leadership, which ended abruptly when a person claiming to be a managing partner of the company that acquired OSS reached out. This person later stated that he had been defrauded and that ownership and operations have reverted to the previous owners, leaving Nine PBS at a loss. The court ruled that Nine PBS had all the rights to access its data stored with OSS and that OSS should facilitate its transfer to a new vendor. Iron Mountain initially agreed to turn over Nine PBS' data, but later claimed that OSS owned the data. Nine PBS is now left with no choice but to sue Iron Mountain to ensure the data is not deleted. The situation is a nightmare scenario for Nine PBS, as they are unsure what will happen to their data and whether it will get lost forever.",
  "summary": "Public broadcaster Nine PBS is in trouble after its cloud storage provider went out of business and it now can't access more than 50TB of archival data. The data center hosting the files can't simply turn over the files, as it's legally owned by another entity, even if the channel is the ultimate owner of the stored data.",
  "key_points": [
    "PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of TV history data",
    "Contracted cloud storage vendor, OSS, went defunct",
    "Nine PBS sues Iron Mountain to preserve archival materials"
  ],
  "editors_take": "Nine PBS's lawsuit against Iron Mountain aims to secure preservation of its 50TB data archive, as uncertainty over ownership and access leaves the broadcaster at risk of losing 70 years of TV history.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}