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Kettlebell Swinging for time: more short sets or less long sets

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OK, this got me interested in what the law exactly has to say, at least in the US. Interestingly, people tried in the past to copyright exercise routines, the exact sequence of movements. An original dance choreography can be copyrighted, and people tried to do the same with an exercise sequence, just like the program we have been discussing. However, this did not fly. For more reading:
Copyright Laws on Exercise Routines
New policy limits copyright protection for dance steps, exercise routines
https://ipspotlight.com/2012/06/25/...protection-for-dance-steps-exercise-routines/
@MikeTheBear I meant that you did not need to commit copyright infringement to basically tell everyone that the program is about. Once you say what the program is about in a non-copyright infringing way, the program becomes obvious to reconstruct. The use of obvious here maybe created more confusion than it helped.

As to "what is the right thing to do", as opposed to the legal question, it's a very complex question and we could spend the next year debating it. The right answer is probably whatever the moderator thinks is right, for the purpose of this forum.
 
Geoff is a friend of StrongFirst. IMHO, the right thing to do is ask him directly if you want to post something he's written.

When I was a college teacher, we used some text books written by my fellow faculty, and I would never think of photocopying more than a page or two from a book of several hundred pages. I expected people to buy the book. To me, Geoff's programs seem like educational material but perhaps that's because this is my frame of reference.

And, FWIW, my solution to the problem isn't original - when I want a student to have a copy of a text book, I see if there are older editions, and I often use an older edition, bought second-hand from ebay. I'm very happy with this solution from all points of view, moral and legal. For my private teaching, I do use some of the textbooks I taught from 20 years ago - those editions are available for $5-10 apiece while the new edition costs well over $100, and the older edition suites my purposes just fine.

-S-
 
To echo Steve Freides, in a community committed to strength and integrity: is our standard to seek out and tip-toe the legal minimum requirement of behavior, or is it to aim for civility, consideration, and respect regardless of how low the societal bar is?
Not intending to preach, but just bringing up what I feel is a good question to reflect on in all areas of life.
 
@Manuel Fortin I was just having a little side conversation with you about intellectual property law. I made the observation that your reasoning seemed to come from patent principles, which makes sense since that is what you do. I appreciate you posting those articles. My Book of Complexes is essentially a collection of various barbell, dumbbell, and kettlebell complexes that were designed by others. I had read a something that placing portions of others' work into a larger collection is not a copyright violation. It's good to know that individual exercises routines are not copyrightable so I don't need to worry (not that I was). Of course, my collection of the complexes and my commentary makes the book copyrightable.

To every else: I agree 100% with the idea of courtesy. With a person like Geoff Neupert, he is a friend of Strongfirst and from my experience, if you email him with a question he responds very quickly. If I wanted to post large portions of his work I would have no problem emailing him and waiting for a response as I know he would respond quickly. And this raises the practical aspect of this - some coaches are either too busy to respond to emails to just plain rude (although I think even a busy person not responding to emails is rude). I would not want to be in a position where I couldn't post something simply because someone is being discourteous. Courtesy is a two-way street.

As a final practical point, in the long run, posting portions of someone's work likely provides more benefit to the author than harm. If the "sample" looks interesting, then a reader may eventually purchase the entire book. Authors and others frequently release portions of their work for this express purpose. In a recent thread here on GS technique someone mentioned that Denis Kanygin had a good DVD on GS. I found some sample videos on Youtube. Some were bootlegged, but others were posts by Denis himself. I liked the sample clips and ended up buying the entire DVD set.
 
I agree with Mike on what he says here - I also note that most people who post anything on this site give full credit to the original writer for his/her efforts as Mike did in this thread. This points the reader in the direction of that person and will be of benefit in either purchases or YouTube hits or whatever.
 
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