American divorce lawyers and academics have stated this week that Facebook is now cited in 65 percent of all divorces in the United States, despite divorce levels remaining relatively stable in the fast few years.
Says Dr. Steven Kimmons, a clinical psychologist and marriage counsellor at Loyola University Medical Centre near Chicago (via Guardian):
We’re coming across it more and more. One spouse connects online with someone they knew from school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook.
A survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) showed a huge jump in divorce cases citing social networking sites, with Facebook at the top at 65 percent, followed by MySpace at 14 percent and Twitter at 5 percent.
The sites weren’t only used to show off evidence of infidelity but also used in custody cases, where spouses could point out pictures of drug and alcohol use by their husband/wife.
Facebook has 600 million users worldwide.
Result for: lawyers
Thirteen major record labels have announced they want to freeze all of LimeWire’s assets, at the same time accusing the founder of the service of trying to evade millions, and possibly billions in damages over copyright infringement.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood found LimeWire guilty of assisting pirates in downloading unauthorized music and movies, and said that founder Mark Gorton personally “directed and benefited from many of the activities” involved.
Lawyers for the labels filed papers this week accusing Gorton of moving 90 percent of LimeWire’s ownership stake to a new entity that he hopes will be shielded from any damages in the lawsuit.
Reads the filing: Gorton and LimeWire “have engaged in a series of fraudulent actions to frustrate a legal judgment in this case…An asset freeze is required in order to ensure that plaintiffs recover at least some of the monetary compensation they are entitled to.”
Despite Wood’s ruling last month, the labels said a quick search of LimeWire showed every recording in Billboard’s Top 40, Top 40 Country, Top 40 Rock and Top 40 Latin Pop charts were still readily available.
Says LimeWire in response: “We will continue to stay focused on the development of our new music service and ensure that the company continues business as usual.”
Result for: lawyers
Apple Inc. is believed to have played a part in raids carried out at this year’s CeBIT expo in Germany. Along with Siemens and Sisvel, Apple is believes to have been behind the forced shut down of an exhibitor’s booth at CeBIT on Friday. The unnamed company was showing off Netbooks and e-book readers.
The unnamed company is alleged to have violated patents held by the three. On Thursday, lawyers from Siemens, Apple and Sisvel reportedly had visited to the booth and levied a €10,000 fine in advance of the raid. On Friday, German police moved in and forced the unnamed exhibitor to shut down.
The raid was not the only one to happen at CeBIT this year either, according to reports. Moves such as these are common at trade shows like CeBIT, as bigger tech companies use their patent portfolios to essentially “shut up” a smaller competitor that
