A court is needed for cover since it is possible that sometimes else's data will be seen or even corrupted in the process. This way they can say they were doing what the court asked for. That is legal cover for everyone to do what they want. Also legal limits on what they can do.

That is how I interpret the article anyway

Sometimes these things can go better for companies like Iron Mountain when there's a court order/decision in place to cover them. Nine PBS, in order to access their own data, could end up accessing data belonging to other people and that may not be properly covered under existing contracts and policies. It's a risk for Iron Mountain if this happens. Having a court decision and court set procedures that essentially force them to participate and also establishes third party review of the data will give them some cover if one of those other clients of the now defunct OSS discovers that Nine PBS accessed or inadvertently retained their data.

If Iron Mountain made a deal with PBS-affiliate, they'd be breaking the terms of the contract with their customer (the fact it is defunct is just an asterisk). If you were an Iron Mountain client and one of your customers made an end run around you to go directly to Iron Mountain because they refused to pay your bill, you'd be pissed at Iron Mountain.

By solving this as they have done, Iron Mountain can assure other clients they will not just let a third person circumvent their clients. They can now say they only did it by a court order even if they were more than willing to accept the asterisk and do it on principle. Everyone is happy. Everyone is whole.

Archival/secure storage is big business with big liability headaches if you make a bad decisiion.