Judge in case of use of copyrighted mantras.
J: Will the witness please state the mantra given to you by this unauthorized
teacher of Vedic Meditation.
Guy with a shirt that has a picture of the milky way with an arrow pointing to
earth. and: "You are here"
"Uh I'm really not supposed to say it out loud or I lose the value of it as a
sound that takes my attention inward."
J: "If you don't answer the question you will be held in contempt of court
punishable by 18 months in prison and a $3,500 fine.
Witness: "Uh OK, it was something like hwrammne.
J: "What?"
Witness "urrhwummne"
J: "Is that the mantra that is copyrighted?"
Lawyer for the movement: "Uh, well, it uh..."
Judge: "Yeah that's what I thought when I first saw this case. Court
adjourned and the plaintive will pay all courts costs.
Mantra guy: "But now my mantra doesn't work."
Judge: "You might want to try Judge Judy. I think she would enjoy that."
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Sep 30, 2011, at 12:13 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
>
> > On 09/30/2011 04:52 AM, Vaj wrote:
> > >
> > > On Sep 29, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
> > >
> > >> What! Those mantra are all "prior art" and cannot be
> > copyrighted. If
> > >> they have managed to pull the wool over Library of Congress on
> > this it
> > >> should be easy to get the copyright rescinded. Either that or
> > you're
> > >> smokin' San Francisco Red.
> > >
> > >
> > > All that they would need to do is take a gander at the various Bija
> > > Koshas (bIja-koza; mantra dictionaries). They not only list all
> > of the
> > > TM mantras, they list their meanings, often in detail, letter by
> > letter.
> >
> > We need some proof that the TMO actually copyrighted them. I just
> > think
> > that John is wrong or has misunderstood the copyrights on TMO material
> > (which is okay). I don't think the TMO lawyers are that dumb. There
> > are lots of books including Woodroffe's that were published in the
> > west
> > and predate the existence of the movement. However opportunists might
> > try to pull such as lowly scheme. As you know one pharmaceutical
> > company patented the chemical structure of Neem which aroused anger in
> > India so they put together an organization and patented all Indian
> > herbs
> > for free use. Likewise if the TMO did try to copyright the beej
> > mantras
> > then alerting India to it would bring the wrath of the Indian
> > spiritual
> > community on them.
>
>
> It's my understanding that the "Transcendental Meditation" trademark
> was lost in at least one country. I have no idea whether or not that
> would apply to other countries as well. I suspect eventually we'll
> see TM marketed as "Maharishi Transcendental Meditation" or something
> similar.
>
