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The Zest

Can you own a yoga sequence or a signature class?

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You can't own the sequence itself. In 2015, the Ninth Circuit held that the Bikram yoga sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises isn't protected by copyright, because it's a process designed to improve health, and copyright doesn't cover processes. What you can own is the name of your class, as a trademark, and the words, photos and video you create to teach it, as copyright. The workout stays free for anyone to teach.

What Bikram claimed

Bikram Choudhury published a book in 1979 called Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class and registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office that year. The book described a sequence the court called "a sequence of twenty-six asanas and two breathing exercises."

Evolation Yoga, another studio, offered "hot yoga." Evolation acknowledged that its hot yoga "includes 26 postures and two breathing exercises and is done for 90 minutes" in a room heated to about 105 degrees. Choudhury sued for copyright infringement. His theory was that his "selection, coordination, and arrangement" of the poses made the sequence a protected work, either as a compilation or as choreography.

What the court held

The case is Bikram's Yoga College of India, L.P. v. Evolation Yoga, LLC, decided by the Ninth Circuit on October 8, 2015. The court asked directly whether the copyright in the 1979 book extended to the sequence itself. Its answer: "the answer is no."

The reason is a single line in the Copyright Act. Section 102(b) says copyright never extends to "any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied." The court found that "at bottom, the Sequence is an idea, process, or system designed to improve health."

Calling the sequence a compilation didn't help. A compilation still has to clear Section 102, and a selection of steps in a process is still a process. Calling it choreography didn't help either. The court held it was "not copyrightable as a choreographic work for the same reason."

Here is the line studio owners remember. Choudhury argued his arrangement was "particularly beautiful and graceful." The court's reply: "beauty is not a basis for copyright protection."

The court's decision lines up with the Copyright Office's own rules. Its circular on choreography lists "Yoga poses and sequences" and "General exercise routines" among ordinary movements that can't be registered as choreography, and gives "A yoga sequence" and "A series of aerobic exercises" as examples of compilations that aren't registrable. The Ninth Circuit quoted an earlier Copyright Office statement that "a claim in a compilation of exercises or the selection and arrangement of yoga poses will be refused registration."

That applies past yoga. A reformer flow, a barre format, a mat sequence or a HIIT circuit is the same kind of thing: a series of movements meant to produce a physical result.

The court was clear that the book itself was protected. Copyright covers "the words and pictures used to describe the Sequence," not the sequence. So the things you create around your method are yours:

  • The written teacher manual and your cueing scripts, as written text.
  • The photos in that manual.
  • Filmed classes and on-demand videos, as audiovisual works.

Someone can teach the same flow in their own words. They can't copy your manual, post your videos or reuse your photos. I break down how copyright, trademark and patent split the work in the article on the three types of protection.

The court also pointed to a third route. It said that if the sequence is entitled to protection at all, "that protection is more properly sought through the patent process." It didn't decide whether the sequence could be patented, and I wouldn't read that line as a suggestion that a workout is likely to be.

Where trademark comes in

Trademark doesn't protect the workout. It protects the name. A service mark is a word, name or symbol used "to identify and distinguish the services of one person, including a unique service, from the services of others." When your signature class has its own name and clients book it by that name, the name is doing trademark work. It's registered in Class 41, which the Nice Classification's list says includes "conducting fitness classes" and "coaching [training]."

That changes what a competitor can and can't do. They can teach the same sequence. Once the name is registered, they can't use a copy or "colorable imitation" of it in a way that's "likely to cause confusion" about whose class it is. In practice, that's where most of the value lives: clients remember the name and the experience, and the name is what you can register.

One caution. A class name only works as a trademark while it points to you. If the name turns into the word everyone uses for the workout, it can become generic, and the statute treats a mark as abandoned when the owner's conduct causes it "to become the generic name for the goods or services." Give the workout a plain description and keep your name as the brand.

What this means for your studio

If you've built a signature format, stop thinking of it as one thing to protect. Split it into three:

  1. The movements. These are free for anyone to teach, including former instructors.
  2. The materials. Your manuals, photos and videos are protected by copyright as original works fixed in a tangible form. Your contracts with instructors and contractors should say who owns what they create. I covered those agreements in the article on contracts that protect your brand.
  3. The name. That's the trademark, and it's the piece that keeps a competitor from trading on what you've built.

If you want to talk through whether your class name can be registered and how it fits next to your studio name, you can see how the search and filing packages work on the services page, and the FAQs page answers most of what comes up before a first call.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call with the attorney (opens in a new tab)

(No legal advice is given on the discovery call. It's a chance to tell me what you're building and hear how the process works.)

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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