May 2005
Score One for Bikram
by Matthew Heller
A federal court in San Francisco has given those concerned about the commercialization of yoga plenty to meditate about. In a landmark ruling, US District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton said last month that Beverly Hills yoga master Bikram Choudhury could legally claim copyright protection for his sequence of yoga postures.
Considering the individual positions “have been in the public domain for centuries,” Hamilton reasoned, it “seems inappropriate, and almost unbelievable, that a sequence of yoga positions could be any one person’s intellectual property.” But she added that, “If a sufficient number of the yoga asanas are arranged in a sufficiently creative manner, copyright protection for the yoga sequence would be available.”
The ruling was a setback for Open Source Yoga Unity (OSYU), a group of yoga teachers and students that sued Choudhury in July 2003 to stop him from enforcing his claimed copyright. If the case proceeds to trial, Choudhury, whose yoga empire includes more than 1,300 studios worldwide, will have to show that his arrangement of asanas is “sufficiently creative.” But some in the yoga world are already mourning the example he has set.
“I can understand the logic” of copyrighting a yoga sequence, says Judith Lasater, president of the California Yoga Teachers Association. “But from my heart, I’m really sad that [it] has become that level of a commodity.”
OSYU filed suit after Choudhury sued—and threatened to sue—several yoga teachers he claimed were infringing on the copyright for the Bikram Yoga sequence that he registered in 2002. Arguing that yoga positions cannot be treated as intellectual property, the group asked the court to declare “Bikram’s claimed trademarks are unenforceable.”
Bikram Yoga consists of a sequence of 26 asanas and two breathing exercises, and classes last 90 minutes in studios heated to more than 100 degrees.
Choudhury, known for his aggressive business tactics, charges $5,000 for his teacher training program. He and his supporters have denied any mercenary motives for his use of copyright, saying he is simply trying to “keep the yoga pure.”
Since 1976, choreographers have been entitled to copyright protection for their arrangements of dance steps. But no court had ruled on copyrighting sequences of yoga positions. “[T]his is a very unusual case,” Hamilton acknowledged.
In denying OSYU’s motion for summary judgment, the judge stressed that copyright law protects a compiler of material who “can demonstrate a sufficient level of creativity in the selection and arrangement of the elements in the compilation.”
Hamilton cited the case of the author of a telephone book who “creatively selected and arranged its entries by compiling the names of businesses of interest to the Chinese community.” She agreed that applying this law to yoga asanas “appears to violate the spirit of yoga,” but said she had been unable to locate any precedent “that precludes such application.”
UCLA law professor Neil Netanel thinks OSYU can still prevail if Choudhury created his sequence of asanas to improve the practitioner’s health. Copyright protection does not extend to “functional” creations as opposed to aesthetic creations such as a choreographed dance.
“A lot hinges on the interpretation of yoga,” Netanel says. “My own sense is that it’s functional.”
Matthew Heller is a Los Angeles-based investigative journalist. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly and New Times.
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