The U.S. Copyright Office previously permitted yoga poses and their sequences to be registered, even if those exercises were in the public domain, Laura Lee Fischer, acting chief of the office’s Performing Arts Division, said in response to an inquiry by an attorney involved in lawsuits the founder of Bikram Yoga filed against three yoga studios.
Bikram Choudhury, the millionaire founder of Bikram Yoga, believes his kind of yoga belongs to him — he has even copyrighted it.
Now, he has sued Yoga to the People for copyright infringement, seeking monetary damages and asking a federal judge to block Yoga to the People from offering its hot yoga class.
Bikram Choudhury’s sweaty techniques are a hit with yoga studios. Now he wants his cut, writes Forbes.
Yoga is big business, racking up $5.7 billion in sales last year, and Choudhury has built a cultlike following.
Recent training costs: $10,500 per session, including $3,000 for room and board in Palm Desert, Calif. At two sessions a year, each of which draw about 325 trainees, that’s $4.9 million in annual revenue. To that add 15 speaking engagements, generating about $20,000 each in ticket sales, plus another few bucks from books and dvds. “I’m a yogi, not a businessman,” Choudhury demurs.
Now he wants another revenue stream: franchising fees paid by studios that use his name.
Officials target Bikram Choudhury’s studio. The magnate accuses the city of harassing him. Over the last 20 years, controversial Los Angeles yoga magnate Bikram Choudhury has turned his signature brand of “hot” yoga into a worldwide, multimillion-dollar industry. But it was Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo who turned up the heat Thursday, charging the popular yogi with 10 criminal safety violations at his La Cienega Boulevard studio. Delgadillo said Choudhury repeatedly flouted notices from the city’s fire and building and safety departments that his converted warehouse studio had insufficient fire exits for the number of its students. Inspectors in
Yoga practitioners are tying themselves in knots over a millionaire guru’s attempt to copyright a series of positions. Bikram Choudhury, a former weightlifter based in Los Angeles, is being sued over his claim to own the copyright of a series of 26 postures used in Bikram yoga, a fast-growing style in which exercises are repeated in a studio heated to 40C (104F). Mr Choudhury has sent letters to more than 100 Bikram yoga schools and teachers, accusing them of violating his copyright and trademark by deviating from his strict teachings and employing instructors who were not trained by him. Yoga
Bikram Choudhury demonstrates that an ancient practice intended to draw its practitioners closer to God can also be a fast track to wealth, The Sun’s Harvey Enchin writes… Vancouver Sun (Canada), Sep. 14, 2002 http://canada.com/ The ancient Indian practice of
