Federal authorities say they may shut down cloud-storage services without having to assist innocent customers in retrieving data lost in the process.

The government is making that argument in the case of Megaupload, the file-sharing service that was shuttered in January following federal criminal copyright-infringement indictments targeting its operators.

The Obama administration is telling an Ohio man seeking the return of his company’s high school sports footage that he should instead be suing Megaupload — even though the government seized Megaupload’s assets in January.

The filing (.pdf) comes as cloud-based storage services are becoming more and more popular — despite there being little clarity about what’s legal and what’s not — and who’s to blame if copyright infringement happens on a service. Even Apple announced enhancements Monday to its iCloud storage service.