US Court Rules That Bikram 'Hot' Yoga Is Not Entitled To Copyright Protection

How about a patent on breathing and stretching? JL

Ian Lovett reports in the New York Times:

In the court’s opinion, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote, “Consumers would have little reason to buy Choudhury’s book if Choudhury held a monopoly on the practice of the very activity he sought to popularize.”

For “hot yoga” instructors across the country, the last week has offered a new freedom within the sweltering rooms: They will not be sued for following half-moon pose with awkward pose.Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a sequence of yoga poses performed in a heated room — popularized by Bikram Choudhury, the self-proclaimed yogi to the stars — was not entitled to copyright protection. The court said that other studios had the right to teach the sequence.

The legal fight has in many ways epitomized the tension between traditional yoga practice, with its focus on spiritual healing and poses that are thousands of years old, and the modern multibillion-dollar industry that has sprung up to sell that practice to the public.Mr. Choudhury had long threatened other instructors with legal action. He warned them that without his authorization, they could not use the sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises made famous at his star-packed Los Angeles studio and its franchises.

But in the court’s opinion, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote, “Consumers would have little reason to buy Choudhury’s book if Choudhury held a monopoly on the practice of the very activity he sought to popularize.”Studio owners around the country let out a long exhale at the ruling, which many said would allow them to continue to focus on teaching yoga, rather than having to worry about copyright infringement.

Andrew Tanner, the owner of a studio in Framingham, Mass., said a different ruling could have set off a race by instructors to copyright their own sequences. “People don’t like the idea of yoga becoming so corporatized,” he said. “Just think how opposed those worlds are.”

Since arriving in Beverly Hills from his native India in the 1970s, Mr. Choudury has taught the Bikram sequence in books, videos and in classes at his Los Angeles studio, where stars like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shirley MacLaine would pop in. He insisted that anyone who wanted to teach the sequence had to pay a licensing fee and adhere to a number of other specifications: Classes are 90 minutes, in a room heated to 105 degrees (a “torture chamber,” in Mr. Choudhury’s words), the floors carpeted despite all the sweat.

The ruling is another blow for Mr. Choudhury, who has also been accused of sexual assaults by multiple women in recent years.

Patrick Harrington was trained by Mr. Choudhury and previously owned a Bikram studio in the Denver area. But after several years, he opened a new studio where he has not taught the Bikram sequence, in part because of fears of a lawsuit. “In yoga, it’s important that we hold ourselves to a higher standard,” Mr. Harrington said. “We’re not in competition with other yoga studios down the street.” Referring to Mr. Choudhury, he added, “I think he was being advised by lawyers after the fact that he could be losing money.”

Mr. Choudhury’s studio, Bikram Yoga College of India, did not respond to a request for an interview, and his lawyers declined to comment. But longtime Bikram instructors said that it was the unaffiliated studios and teachers “stealing” and modifying the Bikram sequence who were motivated by greed.

Jim Kallett, the director of Bikram’s Yoga College of India, San Diego, a Bikram franchisee, said that shorter, 60-minute classes, which some market as “Bikram express,” were dangerous, because he said the body did not have time to warm up properly. “Bikram created this sequence, and the whole idea was it was so simplified and safe, anyone could do it, and really, anyone could teach it,” Mr. Kallett said. “Now, you see people getting hurt left and right, because people are not teaching it right. They don’t want to change it for the benefit of the people who are doing it — they are doing it to make money.”

Over the last decade, a number of studio owners have settled out of court with Mr. Choudhury to avoid a prolonged legal battle. But Mark Drost, another former Bikram devotee who left to found a company in 2008, said he was committed to continuing to use the Bikram sequence in his own way. When Mr. Choudhury sued, he refused to settle.

“We wanted to establish that you can’t own sequences, Mr. Drost, a founder of Evolation Yoga, said. “Traditionally, you take a teacher’s training and move forward with it.”