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Lost Footage Feud: Station Sues Over 70 Years of History
15 Aug
Summary
- A public broadcaster is suing a defunct vendor for lost historical footage.
- The missing archive contains approximately 50 terabytes of programming.
- A court sided with the broadcaster, but data recovery remains complex.
A public service broadcaster has filed a lawsuit against its cloud storage vendor, alleging it is being denied access to approximately 50 terabytes of historically important footage. The station claims its access was abruptly cut off earlier this year by Open Source Storage (OSS), which has reportedly gone defunct.
The lost archive reportedly contains crucial programming from the past 70 years, including records of East St. Louis's history, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 1993 Great Flood. Nine PBS has stated its commitment to recovering this valuable content.
OSS had an agreement with Iron Mountain for data storage. However, with OSS defunct, the data became stranded. Iron Mountain has refused to return the materials, asserting that OSS technically owned the physical services housing the data within their facility.
A preliminary court hearing earlier this week sided with Nine PBS. Iron Mountain, however, insists data recovery is not straightforward, stating they only provide physical infrastructure and do not access client data. Both Nine PBS and Iron Mountain must provide court updates by September 14.
