The Hindu : Business : A yoga guru and a copyright issue

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 15, 2005

Business

Business

A yoga guru and a copyright issue

A multi-millionaire popularising ``hot yoga'' in America reaches a settlement

SAN FRANCISCO: An Indian yoga guru who became a multi-millionaire popularising ``hot yoga'' in America has reached a settlement with a coalition of yoga studios who challenged the copyright to his version of the discipline.

Bikram Choudhury, who trademarked his name and copyrighted his techniques, had been sending ``cease and desist'' letters ordering studios to stop teaching the same form of yoga that his school has used to train more than 2,000 instructors who have opened more than 1,200 Bikram studios in the U.S. Some of them formed a cooperative and sued Mr. Choudhury, claiming that yoga cannot be copyrighted.

The settlement is confidential, but three people involved in the case confirmed that Mr. Choudhury has agreed not to sue the 50 members of the San Francisco-based yoga cooperative. And cooperative members have agreed not to advertise the trademarked name ``Bikram''.

The settlement avoids a June 20 trial that might have settled the question of whether Mr. Choudhury's copyrighted package of 26 poses and two breathing exercises, performed in a certain sequence in 105-degree heat, could be legally protected.

``Yoga, the word itself, means unity. So our lawsuit was of the intention of creating unity,'' said Sandy McCauley, co-owner of Yoga Loka. She and dozens of other instructors who formed the cooperative received letters from Mr. Choudhury's attorneys demanding that they stop ``distributing, selling or otherwise exploiting'' his work. The cooperative had asked U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who later approved the settlement, to void Mr. Choudhury's 2003 copyright. Mr. Choudhury countered that yoga studios cease using his ``Bikram'' trademarked name unless they were affiliated with the Los Angeles-based Bikram's Yoga College of India. Mr. Choudhury, who lives in Beverly Hills and collects Bentley and Rolls Royce cars, was a yoga champion in India who has been teaching his yoga since the 1970s.

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