Gilberto Gil - Leading Brazil towards Reasonable Copyright

Gilberto Gil is a neat guy - he is a hugely popular musician turned Minister of Culture for Brazil. He introduced Creative Commons to Brazil and has generally recognized that IP needs to evolve in a digital world.

In a New York Times article about him today, it covers his growth and gives some clear examples of how music and culture struggle against copyright.

“I think we are moving rapidly toward the obsolescence and eventual disappearance of a single traditional model and its replacement by others that are hybrids,” Mr. Gil said in a February interview at his home here in northeast Brazil, one day before the start of Carnival. “My personal view is that digital culture brings with it a new idea of intellectual property, and that this new culture of sharing can and should inform government policies..." Mr. Gil’s complaints about the inequities of copyrights are derived in part from his own experience. Like many other musicians he signed contracts early in his career that essentially gave away publishing rights to the songs he wrote. But he waged a seven-year court battle to regain his rights, which ended recently with a favorable ruling that opens the door for other Brazilian artists to regain their rights as well.