Explore yoga's unexpected legal conflicts, from copyright over poses to free speech on beaches. Understand key law concepts through these captivating disputes.
In the serene world of downward dog yoga poses, where yoga is also practiced on the beach, yoga wars have erupted and made their way to the Ninth Circuit.
Two cases paint the canvas—one a copyright case and the other a First Amendment case. One involves Bikram Yoga trying to claim, through copyright, the exclusive right to practice and teach a specific set of 26 yoga poses. The other involves the City of San Diego attempting to ban yoga on the beaches.
Both cases provide a foundation to explore the basics of copyright law along with a primer on the First Amendment, to then find out whether or not, when yoga wars erupt in the realm of copyright and the First Amendment, yoga practitioners are the winners.
Legal Technology & Education
New Media Legal Publishing, Inc. is a legal publishing company based in Los Angeles, California, that develops, produces, markets, and distributes innovative legal education content for law firms and companies. For more information about NMLP and its products, please visit http://www.newmedialegal.com .
Founding Partner at One, LLP
Peter Afrasiabi is a founding partner at One LLP and focuses his practice on copyright, patent, trademark, and entertainment litigation. In addition, Peter is a professor and the Director of the Appellate Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Peter graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.
