In about an hour the official launch celebration of Creative Commons Brazil will begin. Neeru and I are here at the 5th Annual Software Livre conference in Porto Alegre with the iCommons Brazil team from Rio’s FGV Law School, as well as William Fisher, faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center. Our chairman, Lawrence Lessig, arrives shortly. The event will feature addresses by Lessig, Fisher, Jon Maddog Hall, FGV dean Joaquim Arruda Falcao, and many more, plus the debut of FGV’s Portuguese translations of the Creative Commons animations. (Watch them now. They’re totally amazing.) And for the grand finale, Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil will officially release a few of his songs under the License Formerly Known as Sampling, which, from this moment forward, will be called Recombo, a name inspired by the Brazilian art collective re:combo. Minister Gil was in Lisbon last week, playing with Paul McCartney and others, and just earlier this week he inaugurated the Brazil v. Argentina futebol match with song on national television. Needless to say we are humbled and thrilled beyond belief to have him preside over this important day. And as if that weren’t enough, Mr. Gil is playing a live show later tonight. Recombo-licensed songs will be featured.

Brazil offers two gifts to the world today: Recombo creativity, and the music of Gilberto Gil.

More soon. Stay tuned.