In the 1960s, Dick Fosbury invented a new way of jumping over a high bar. Previously, high jumpers had lept over the bar sideways, stomach down, like this:
Fosbury discovered that, by twisting one's body during the takeoff and passing over the bar with one's stomach facing upwards, one could achieve greater height.
In an excellent article analyzing the technique, Prof. Jesus Depana provides the following illustrations of the complex series of body positions encompassed by Fosbury's technique:
Using this technique, Fosbury won the high-jump contest in the 1968 Olympics -- and, in the process, set a new Olympic record. Soon thereafter, the technique was adopted by almost all elite high-jumpers.
By Bikram's logic, Fosbury's series of body positions would have been considered a form of choreography -- and, as such, would have enjoyed copyright protection. The result would have been to enable Fosbury to prevent all of his competitors from "publicly performing" his technique in Olympic and other competititons for decades.