> > > > 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 To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/