We recently looked at an example of Twitter collaboration in the music world, but this may be the first case wherein the micro-blogging network was used for mainstream sample clearance.
Pitchfork reports on an exchange initiated by Erykah Badu on Twitter, seeking last-minute clearance for a sample from the Wings song “Arrow Through Me.” Looking to connect with Paul McCartney, she appealed to anyone who might help connect her to him or a closer contact in the chain.
Following the stream of tweets, it looks like Badu got a hookup to Lenny Kravitz, who knows McCartney’s daughter Stella, who then connected her to Paul. He approved the sample clearance and she thanked her “Twitter fam” for making the clearance come together.
As Tears for Fears’ Curt Smith talked about in our recent interview, usually this process involves lots of lawyers and in-betweens and can often be drawn out for weeks if not months of back and forth. In another excellent example of how social media can be used to disintermediate the music industry status quo, Twitter made sample clearance a collaborative and rapid process by putting two artists into direct contact.
Do you know of any other interesting examples of social media making things easier for artists?
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: clearance, erykah badu, licensing, music, music industry, paul mccartney, samples, social media, twitter, wings
