Yoga copyright raises questions of ownership

[Guest guest]

Yoga copyright raises questions of ownership

 

By Mindy Fetterman, USA TODAY

 

India seems to be willing to go to the mat over yoga.

That's because Bikram Choudhury, the self-proclaimed Hollywood "yoga

teacher to the stars," incensed his native country by getting a

U.S. copyright on his style of yoga four years ago.

In response, India has put 100 historians and scientists to work

cataloging 1,500 yoga poses recorded in ancient texts written in

Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian. India will use the catalogue to try to

block anyone from cornering the market on the 5,000-year-old

discipline of stretching, breathing and meditating.

 

Bikram, who goes by one name like Bono and Beyoncé, says he sought

legal protection for his yoga because "it's the American way."

"You cannot drive the car if you do not have a driver's license," he

explains. "You cannot do brain surgery if you are not a brain

surgeon.

You cannot even do a massage if you don't have a license." And, he

says, you shouldn't be able to teach his Bikram Yoga unless you pay

him for a license.

 

India's counterattack goes way beyond Bikram.

The government wants to thwart anyone who tries to profit from the

nation's so-called "traditional knowledge," from yoga to 150,000

ancient medical remedies. India already has successfully challenged

one U.S. patent granted to two Indian-born Americans who used the

spice turmeric in a wound-healing product. That patent was revoked by

the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

 

"Practically every Indian housewife knows (turmeric) and uses it to

heal wounds," says V.K. Gupta of India's National Institute of

Science Communication and Information Resources, which is developing

the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.

 

When completed, perhaps as soon as December, the digital library will

be translated into English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese and

sent to patent, copyright and trademark offices around the world.

 

That way, when someone such as Bikram tries to get a copyright on

yoga moves or patents on ancient medicinal cures, those offices

could say: "No, that's not original. They've been doing it in India

for thousands of years."

 

Typically, patents are given only to those who invent or discover

something new. In general, copyrights go on written works; trademarks

go on company and product names.

 

The digital library will "prevent the grant of bad patents," Gupta

says. He calls such patents a "misappropriation of traditional

knowledge."

 

India has no plans to challenge Bikram in court, Gupta says. But it

hopes the digital library will stop others from following him.

Some of Bikram's fellow yoga teachers are skeptical of India's

efforts to protect yoga.

"It's a little late in the game," says Beth Shaw, president of

YogaFit in Hermosa Beach, Calif., which developed a yoga program for

health clubs. "They should have done it 30 years ago."

 

full article:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-06-28-yoga-usat_x.htm

 

 

It begins with Appropriation, then Misappropriation and it ends with

theft.

 

Of course this implys that legal action can be taken against

traditional or independent practicioners and teachers of knowledge

like Yoga and Ayurveda only because some copyright or patent that

was issued on a certain sequence of Asanas or a therapy happens to

be part of, or resembles a traditional teaching and practice.

 

Is Bikram Chowdury and his "american Yoga" only one isolated case

or is it the beginning of a grand theft of Yoga and other practices

considered valuable by the west?

 

What happens if others follow this example and other sequences will

also be copyrighted? The amount of useful and correct posture

sequences is not endless.

 

What are the consequences of this theft of intellectual property,

terms and practices for all the other forms of non copyrighted

Sadhana, Upasana, Yoga, Religion, Spirituality and Meditation?

 

If a sequence of Asanas can be copyrighted what about meditational

sequences of Laya Yoga, Kundalini, Kriyas and Bandhas, or the

sequence of acts in a puja?

 

Will it slowly become more and more complicated and eventually more

or less outlawed and illegal to teach Yoga or Ayurveda in a

traditional or independent way?

 

What about all the independent western Yoga Teachers, will they

eventually be forced to pay licenses and be reeducated within a

copyrighted western yoga system and can they only teach this

system safely if they want to avoid legal problems?

 

How are Indian teachers affected, do they need a staff of lawyers and

legal counsellors, in the future, if they vist the west to teach, to

avoid infringement of yoga copyrights?

 

I couldn´t find any information if Bikram Chowdry in these 4 years

of his copyright, has already won any lawsuits against other yoga

teachers who used the patented sequence, it would be interesting to

know what the impact of his copyright on Yoga was on the other

Yoga Teacher in the USA.

Where some of them already forced to change and adopt another

sequence of Asans than they used to do before?