St. Louis court grants Nine PBS possession of 50TB after OSS default judgment

Nine PBS sent Iron Mountain a March 13 letter offering to cover reasonable access costs after OSS stopped responding. The station secured a default judgment that ordered OSS to return the data or enable transfer to a new provider. Iron Mountain refused, citing its contract only with OSS and lack of authority over third-party hardware.

Iron Mountain stated it supplies only physical infrastructure including power, cooling, and connectivity, with no access to customer data. The court ruling confirmed Nine PBS ownership but did not compel Iron Mountain without a specific order against it. This matches patterns in colocation disputes where physical custody and contractual privity diverge.

Similar incidents include 2023-2024 cases where media archives lost access after provider bankruptcy filings, documented in Delaware Chancery Court dockets. Contract language limiting provider liability to rack space rather than data recovery creates systematic risk for organizations without independent backups.

Nine PBS must now obtain an enforcement order naming Iron Mountain or pursue OSS assets directly. Operational continuity depends on whether the station maintains off-site copies; absence of disclosed backups leaves the 50TB recovery timeline uncertain beyond the 90-day enforcement window typical in such judgments.