Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times A Yoga to the People class in the East Village in 2010.A popular New York-based chain of hot-yoga studios accused by Bikram yoga of copyright infringement has decided to let go, despite a copyright-office ruling that seemed to support its position.
The chain, Yoga to the People, has agreed to stop offering its high-temperature classes that are patterned after Bikram yoga in order to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Bikram, according to a joint press release issued by both parties last week.
Yoga to the People, which charges $8 a class at its six studios in New York City - compared with as much as $25 at Bikram studios â€" will stop offering its hot yoga classes by Feb. 15.
Bikram's numerous suits against its imitators, including the one filed in California last December against Yoga to the People, have drawn criticism for their claims that yoga postures, which are thousands of years old, could be anyone's property.
The current suit charged that the sequence of 26 postures and two breathing exercises, performed in a room heated to 105 degrees, formulated by Bikram's founder, Bikram Choudhury, were Mr. Choudhury's intel lectual property, and that Yoga to the People's founder, Greg Gumucio, a former student of Mr. Choudhury's, stole it from him.
In June, the federal copyright office ruled that arrangements of preexisting exercises, such as yoga poses, could not be copyrighted:
While such a functional system or process may be aesthetically appealing, it is nevertheless uncopyrightable subject matter. A film or description of such an exercise routine or simple dance routine may be copyrightable, as may a compilation of photographs of such movements. However, such a copyright will not extend to the movements themselves, either individually or in combination, but only to the expressive description, depiction, or illustration of the routine …
The Copyright Office wrote t hat copyright registrations that were issued in the past “were issued in error.†Mr. Choudhury obtained a copyright for his sequence in 2003.
The Copyright Office ruling does not mention Bikram yoga but says that “an example that has occupied the attention of the Copyright Office for quite some time involves the copyrightability of the selection and arrangement of preexisting exercises, such as yoga poses.â€
Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times Greg Gumucio, founder of Yoga to the People, standing, teaches a class in New York in 2010.Nevertheless, Mr. Gumucio wrote in a letter [pdf] posted on Yoga to the People's Web site, he decided to settle the suit by agreeing to stop offering the course patterned after Bikram.
The Copyright Office ruling, which Mr. Gumucio called “an important victory,†would still have required him to fight the matter in court, and, Mr. Gumucio wrote, “Intuitively, I no longer felt the need to be entangled in the Bikram battle.â€
Mt. Gumucio, who opened his first Yoga to the People studio in 2006 in the East Village, added that reading a book by another former Bikram disciple-turned-competitor, “Hell Bent,†by Benjamin Lorr,
forced me to consider deeply why I continue to maintain an association with Bikram the man and Bikram the yoga sequence â€" even if from a distance. There i s so much good yoga to be explored, played with, and created! Why have a connection with someone with whom I disagree with on so many levels?
Yoga to the People, which also have four studios on the West Coast, offers “Power Vinyasa†classes in addition to the hot-yoga classes.
A lawyer for Mr. Choudhury, Robert Gilchrest, did not return a call to California seeking comment Monday morning.
