> > > > Bikram Choudry, the founder of Bikram Yoga, has successfully 
> > > > defended....
> 
> > Also discussed often was vengeance, ways to punish
> > former TM teachers who dared to teach outside the
> > organization....
> 
> ...even if they teach TM properly? 

Especially if.

> I was taught that TM is not 
> the name of the technique. It is "Transcendental Meditation As
> Taught By Maharishi Mahesh Yogi". This was said in the mid '70s.
> The word "transcendental" is a word in common English usage. The
> word "Bikram" is not. Is that not the crucial difference?

Actually, in terms of protecting copyright, the 
phrase you used is incorrect.  Copyright have to
be used as adjectives, as in, "The Transcendental
Meditation technique," or "The TM technique," or
"The TM program."  Using them incorrectly, as nouns,
is one of the reasons why a copyright can be lost
and fall back into the public domain.

The other essential legal step in protecting a 
copyright is the *agressive* prosecution of anyone
infringing on that copyright.  If the courts find
that the copyright holder has been lax about this,
that is another reason that the copyright can be
lost.

I know that a lot of people in the yoga community
have problems with Bikram over his court case. 
They point out that the asanas he teaches are very
*much* in the public domain, have been taught as
he teaches them for centuries, and thus should not
be copyrighted.  What he copyrighted, associated
with his name, was a particular *sequence* of 
these asanas.  As I understand it, no one *ever*
tried to teach yoga using his name, as "Bikram-
style yoga" or anything like that.  It's just that
other teachers taught the same poses in the same
sequence and he (Bikram) wanted to stop them from
doing it.  It would seem that he has succeeded.
It would also seem that he has, at the same time,
succeeded in becoming the laughing-stock of the
entire yoga community.  

Unc






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