• by Wayne Friedman , March 18, 2010

Viacom has revealed in court documents that YouTube executives deliberately allowed pirated copyrighted videos on its Web site -- all to profit from a big audience that those videos would attract.

This information, which came from repeated and internal YouTube emails, is part of Viacom's major ongoing lawsuit against YouTube -- a $1 billion court case filed in March 2007 for "massive copyright violations" and damages.

For its part, the Google-owned YouTube countered that much of this misuse actually came from Viacom itself -- that Viacom staffers, with hidden identities, uploaded the clips. YouTube says Viacom used outside marketing consultants and non-Viacom computer systems to send video.

Viacom said YouTube emails came from the most senior company officials themselves, who mulled what to do with video content that belonged to major studios or television networks. Many of these emails were sent as far back as 2005 -- before Google purchased YouTube for $1.8 billion in 2006.

Since the lawsuit was filed, YouTube has installed a filtering system called Content ID, allowing it to check new video clips against copyrighted content.

YouTube, the biggest video destination on the Web, has been trying to expand from its user-generated video roots to build business and make deals for authorized premium TV network shows. The move is similar to what many studios and networks have done with Hulu.com.

YouTube wants to compete for the same big-name advertising business that Hulu.com, a growing competitor of premium TV shows, has been receiving. Hulu's three partners are News Corp., NBC Universal and Walt Disney.