Ooooh boy.  Well, folks, if there’s anything you wanted to see on YouTube you may want to go there now and watch, because it looks like the lawsuit Viacom’s bringing against them is about to blow wide open.

Check THIS out:

In addition, internal YouTube e-mails indicate that YouTube managers knew and discussed the existence of unauthorized content on the site with employees but chose not to remove the material, three sources with knowledge of the case told CNET.  The e-mails, according to the sources who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing litigation, surfaced during an exchange of information between the two sides of the legal dispute. They are one of the cornerstones of Viacom’s case, as well as that of a separate class action lawsuit filed against Google and YouTube by a group of content owners, the sources said. The group includes a European soccer league and a music-publishing company.

And this torpedoes YouTube’s defense.  It was one thing for YouTube to have no idea that the content was getting posted.  It was another to know and be working on it.  It was something entirely different to know and do nothing about it, which is what those documents seem to show.

YouTube, and through them, Google, is about to have a seriously bad time fending off Viacom’s attack.  But YouTube’s defense may not be for naught after all–see, they have one excellent point backing them up: all these people uploading copyrighted content…some of them are the ACTUAL OWNERS of the copyright.  Viacom’s doing the uploading in some cases.  So how can YouTube ever be expected to know the difference between Viacom’s own uploads and uploads from some guy who converted his VHS collection into MP4 and uploaded it himself?

Better safe than sorry though, folks–best get your video fixes while they’re there to be got.