A PBS station in Missouri is suing Iron Mountain after its cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage, went defunct, leaving them without access to 50TB of archival data. The lawsuit centers on data ownership and backup protocols, with PBS now seeking to retrieve the lost information.

Commenters are sharply divided over the incident. Some argue that cloud storage is inherently risky and that proper 3-2-1 backup procedures should have been in place, while others claim the issue stems from poor contract management. Village604 argues that cloud storage is safe if proper backup procedures are followed, but it's not a complete solution. Kolanaki suggests cloud providers should be legally required to return data upon closure. Meanwhile, Bluegrass_Addict claims cloud storage is less secure than physical storage, and RNAi points to Iron Mountain's poor safety record.

The community consensus is that PBS should have ensured data ownership and backup protocols, but there's significant debate over the role of cloud storage and the responsibility of providers. The key fault lines are between those who trust cloud storage with proper safeguards and those who view it as inherently risky without physical backups.