Maybe, says CNET’s Greg Sandoval. He reports that Viacom’s attorneys have unearthed emails that indicate that YouTube employees uploaded copyrighted material to the site and that “managers” knew there was copyrighted stuff on the site but didn’t do anything about it.

Those allegations happen to be key parts of Viacom’s (VIA) suit against Google (GOOG) and YouTube, and a good part of what the company has been looking for in the discovery/deposition process that has stretched on for more than a year and is slated to extend through the end of 2009.

Viacom has argued that senior YouTube employees, including cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, knew full well that their site was full of copyrighted material and not only didn’t try to prevent it, but at some point even encouraged it.

So what exactly do the emails say? I don’t know. Sandoval is summarizing the documents, not reproducing them. And if I’m reading his story correctly, he may not have seen them either, but may be relying on someone else’s description of them. (That said, in a separate story, Sandoval does reproduce parts of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s deposition from the same case.)

Here’s his description:

Lawyers working on a $1 billion copyright lawsuit filed by Viacom against Google’s YouTube may have uncovered evidence that employees of the video site were among those who uploaded unauthorized content to YouTube.

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.

I’ve asked Sandoval for more information about the emails he’s referring to, but I don’t expect him to say much; anyone who released documents from discovery would be violating a court order. Viacom had no comment. Here’s YouTube’s comment, via CNET: “The characterizations of the supposed evidence, made in violation of a court order, are wrong, misleading, or lack important context and notably come on the heels of a series of significant setbacks for the plaintiffs. The evidence will show that we go above and beyond our legal obligations to protect the rights of content owners.”

That’s the argument that Brewster Kahle, co-founder of the Internet Archive, made in an op-ed in the Washington Post, in which he writes that the settlement “provides a new and unsettling form of media consolidation.”

Google’s book-scanning project drew outcry and a class-action lawsuit from the Authors Guild and the American Association of Publishers, who said the Internet company was violating copyright laws by scanning copyrighted works. A settlement agreement was reached in October of 2008 which would allow publishers and authors to share Google’s profits from the sale of digital versions of copyrighted works. The deadline for plaintiffs to object to or opt out of the settlement was recently extended to Sept. 4, 2009.

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In sum, Microsoft engaged in bait and switch–assuring consumers they were purchasing ‘Vista Capable’ machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as ‘Vista.’”

– Excerpt from the Vista Capable lawsuit

Looks like the three-hour deposition Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave in the so-called “Vista Capable” class action suit was for naught. A judge Wednesday ruled that the lawsuit, which has troubled Microsoft for nearly two years now, cannot go forward as a class action. Instead, plaintiffs who claim Microsoft labeled PCs “Windows Vista Capable” even though the computers were capable of running only the stripped down “Home Basic” version of the OS, must pursue their cases individually. Seems the plaintiffs were unable to convincingly demonstrate that the “Windows Vista Capable” marketing program resulted in increased sales for Microsoft, an argument essential to supporting their class action claim.

A lucky turn of events for Microsoft (MSFT) and one that could potentially save the company millions of dollars in compensatory damages and, by some accounts, up to $8.52 billion-worth of memory and graphics cards if it should lose the case–assuming any of the plaintiffs have the courage to go up against Microsoft on their own.

In sum, Microsoft engaged in bait and switch–assuring consumers they were purchasing ‘Vista Capable’ machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as ‘Vista.’”

– Excerpt from the Vista Capable lawsuit

Looks like the three-hour deposition Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave in the so-called “Vista Capable” class action suit was for naught. A judge Wednesday ruled that the lawsuit, which has troubled Microsoft for nearly two years now, cannot go forward as a class action. Instead, plaintiffs who claim Microsoft labeled PCs “Windows Vista Capable” even though the computers were capable of running only the stripped down “Home Basic” version of the OS, must pursue their cases individually. Seems the plaintiffs were unable to convincingly demonstrate that the “Windows Vista Capable” marketing program resulted in increased sales for Microsoft, an argument essential to supporting their class action claim.

A lucky turn of events for Microsoft (MSFT) and one that could potentially save the company millions of dollars in compensatory damages and, by some accounts, up to $8.52 billion-worth of memory and graphics cards if it should lose the case–assuming any of the plaintiffs have the courage to go up against Microsoft on their own.