Brazil’s Gilberto Gil, the granddaddy of tropicalismo music, is also the godfather of a huge shift in that country’s attitude toward open source everything. While Microsoft and other entrenched factions are putting up a fight, Gil and others realize the concept of intellectual property is only as useful as the benefits we all can reap together. How does it benefit society that a cash register rings at AOL Time Warner every time you hear the Happy Birthday Song in a movie or on TV? They bought the rights fair and square, but shouldn’t a song so tied in to our cultural celebrations be trademark-free yet? Isn’t it counter to the public’s interest to levy a tax on the most commonly sung song in the English language? If the corporations and their lawyers continue to have their way, the public domain will rarely see new additions. Innovation will slow as rights-holders claim that slight modifications of old ideas constitute new ones. Gil thinks it’s time to reverse the legal course of IP, and that Brazil is the place to do it. Not only has he included a song on Wired‘s new Creative Commons Project CD, but, as a politician, is a vocal advocate for Brazil’s adoption of Linux (the open source computer operating system) — yes, the whole country.