On June 18, 2012, the Copyright Office issued a statement of policy to clarify its practices for the examination and registration of claims in compilations. After reviewing the text and legislative history of the Copyright Act and the US Supreme Court's decision in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. (499 U.S. 340 (1991)), the Copyright Office determined that a compilation must fall within one or more of the categories of authorship listed in Section 102(a) of the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 102(a)) to be registrable. The Copyright Office finds that only Congress has the authority to establish new categories of authorship.

Under Section 102(a), the eight categories of authorship are:

Consistent with public statements made by Copyright Office officials in December 2011, the statement specifically notes that compilations of exercises, including sequences of yoga poses, are not copyrightable because they do not fall within any of these categories. Similarly, simple dance routines do not have sufficient attributes of an original work of choreography. The Copyright Office also notes that exercise sequences may also be an uncopyrightable under Section 102(b) as functional systems or processes because they are intended to improve in one's health or mental condition.

For a more detailed discussion of the categories of authorship and copyright protection for compilations, see Practice Note, Copyright: Overview: Protected Subject Matter.