• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 15, 2010

Continuing to press its argument that Google knew of privacy on YouTube, Viacom today released additional court documents showing that Google executives were aware of infringement on the video-sharing site before purchasing the company.

Viacom says that these documents, like ones released late last month, support its case that Google should be held liable for infringement on the site. “Taken together, these exhibits make clear one of our core claims in the case: that Google made a deliberate, calculated business decision not only to profit from copyright infringement, but also to use the threat of copyright infringement to try to coerce rights owners like Viacom into licensing their content on Google's terms,� Stanley Pierre-Louis, vice president, associate general counsel for intellectual property and content protection says in a blog post about the documents.

Comments by Google executives included remarks like: “YouTube's business model is completely sustained by pirated content."

While these statements might make Google look bad, it’s not clear that executives’ beliefs that the site had some infringing clips is relevant to whether it’s entitled to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors. The safe harbors say that companies are immune from copyright liability for user-uploaded material provided they remove it on request. There’s an exception if companies know of infringement on the site, but the scope of that exception hasn’t yet been determined by the courts.

For its part, YouTube is accusing Viacom of "trying to litigate this case in the press.�

“These documents aren't new. They are taken out of context and have nothing to do with this lawsuit,� a YouTube spokesperson says.