I've reported several times before about NXIVM, a group that has sued over being called a "cult" and to have materials critical of it taken down from a web site. It doesn't appear that they have always acted very well and, now, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled against them.

Rick Ross explains:

“We agree with the district court that the website’s use of quotation from the manual to support their critical analyses of the seminars…[was used] for the purpose of ‘criticism, comment scholarship, or research,’” wrote the court. The Second Circuit also noted that NXIVM’s claim that the doctors had unlawfully copied “the heart of their ‘services” within the reports was meaningless, because “such services…are not copyrightable expression.”

The appellate court decision also agreed with the lower court that “in order to do the research and analysis necessary to support their critical commentary, it was reasonably necessary for defendants to quote liberally from NXIVM’s manual.” ... The court said that use of a group's material “might well harm, or even destroy, the market for the original,” but that this “is of no concern to us so long as the harm stems from the force of the criticism offered.”

Judge Dennis Jacobs summed up the situation succinctly, “Ross and his co-defendants quoted from NXIVM’s manual to show that it is the pretentious nonsense of a cult…Certainly, no critic should need an author’s permission to make such criticism…”

Ross points out that this decision helps strengthen the case against those groups which have tried to use legal process to silence critics. It's unsurprising when small religious groups would prefer not to be criticized, but some go too far in abusing the justice system in order to eliminate negative reports about them.

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