Wednesday, April 16, 2003

McYoga This one is for Paulette: I've been following the Bikram yoga IP dispute Donna spotted Thursday ("Hot, sweaty and scandalous," Salon) for awhile, since the studio being sued is the one five minutes from my home where I've practiced for some seven years. (More: "Yoga's Bad Boy," the Yoga Journal; "Yogis Behaving Badly," Business 2.0.) The case has some fascinating issues—the worst kind for litigants, of course. Bikram wants to create a Starbuckian experience of consistency and quality. But while Starbucks might be able to halt unauthorized sales of "Frappuccino," does this mean it can dictate and profit from all sales of blended coffee, syrup and ice? Things are further complicated by the ancient and spiritual nature of the yoga asanas. As for me? I'm off to stretch and sweat. [Bag and Baggage] And here is an excerpt from the Salon.com article: If Choudhury [Bikram] has his way, every Bikram Yoga studio in the world will soon be franchised and under his control. To start this process, he recently obtained a copyright for his particular sequence of yoga poses—a 90-minute series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises done in room heated to 105 degrees. Choudhury says that yoga studios that want to continue teaching Bikram Yoga must pay franchise and royalty fees, change their name to Bikram's Yoga College of India, stop teaching other styles of yoga, use only Bikram-approved dialogue when instructing students, refrain from playing music during classes, and a host of other stipulations. 10:40:07 AM

How will the artists get paid? There is a lot of controversy about digital media, copy protection, fair use, and internetworking. In most cases from the viewpoint of legislators trying to react to lobbyists, as I understand it, it boils down to one question: How will the artists get paid? My answer is simple: The same way artists have always gotten paid. I wrote an essay to examine that issue to see how it applies to today's world. See How will the artists get paid?. The bottom line? "Throughout history there have been a variety of ways that artists have gotten paid so they can create their work: Through an ecosystem which looks to a mixture of amateur, performance, patronage, and commission forms of payment... Listening to representatives from the recording and movie industries, you would think that selling fixed artifacts is the only way that artists can get paid. That has never been the case, and should not be in the future or else society and art itself will suffer. Those publishing businesses may be based on that one form of payment, but the artists' livelihood need not." [SATN] Three cheers for Dan Bricklin! 10:09:55 AM