Can you copyright a yoga move?
From Metafilter:
Copyright a yoga move? If yoga has been around for 5,000 years, can a 21st century businessman claim to own a piece of it? Bikram Choudhury says yes.
The Beverly Hills yoga mogul, who popularized his style of yoga and then franchised a chain of studios bearing his name, has long rankled traditionalists, who dislike his tough business tactics and brash outspokenness. Now Choudhury is facing a challenge in a San Francisco courtroom, where a federal judge is hearing arguments in a lawsuit that some legal experts say could define a new frontier in intellectual property. At issue: Can Choudhury take a sequence of two breathing exercises and 26 yoga poses from an ancient Indian practice, copyright it and control how it is practiced? The Open Source Yoga Unity people say he can't.
Read the comments as well!
Two weeks ago a young man was stabbed to death on the street next door to my shop. His family and friends set up a memorial on the sidewalk next to the liquor store where he fought and died. Along with candles, flowers and photos, someone offered an unopened 32-ounce bottle of beer. That beer sat on the ground untouched for a week when one of the local drunks couldn’t stand it any longer and grabbed it. When someone passing by told him, “don’t take that!” he incredulously asked, “why not?”
Why Not? I think the Law of Karma is a real good reason. But this man is sick, frightened and no doubt thinks he is very far from God. It seems to me that the significance of robbing a grave for something one thinks he needs is nothing compared to taking a gift from God; selling it as your own and then using the law to thwart others in its use, in order to further enrich yourself (shiver…)
The Bikrams and Chopras of this world stand in stark contrast to people like the French sadhu in India who built factories from scratch, employs thousands, and takes nothing for himself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3094780.stm
This is an example of power, I aspire to :-)
Namaste
Posted by: omjaroo | Apr 29, 2005 at 01:51 AM