From the Government filing:
"Any ownership interest by Mr. Goodwin in that data would be limited by at least two separate agreements: (1) the contract between Carpathia and Megaupload regarding Megaupload’s use of Carpathia servers; and, more specifically, (2) the written agreement between Megaupload and Mr. Goodwin regarding use of Megaupload’s service. Those contracts not only bind Mr. Goodwin’s use of Megaupload’s service and Carpathia’s servers, they also likely limit any property interest he may have in the data stored on Carpathia’s property. Thus, the Court should limit the breadth of the initial hearing to whether Mr. Goodwin has a prima facie case, i.e. whether he retains any ownership interest in copies of files which he uploaded pursuant to agreements which may have severely limited any ownership rights."
https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/Govt_41(g)_...
Isn't that like saying that if you put your car on somebody else's property, he now owns the car? My analogy may not be perfect, but I'm sure there are much better analogies out there that make what the Government is suggesting illogical.
I think their argument is that you no longer maintain control of the object.
If you share a house with someone, and leave your drug paraphernalia in the common area, if your housemate invites the police in and they see it there they can use it in court and leverage that to search your room.
I disagree with their argument, but they are suggesting that the cloud provider is your housemate and you gave up control when you uploaded it to their common area.
