Ben Schwartz

Over the last few decades the term ‘bootlegging’—a practice once relegated to smugglers and copyright infringers—has become understood as a creative act. Debates about homage, appropriation, and theft that are common in the art world, are now being held in the spheres of corporate branding, social media, and the creative industry as a whole. Today, bootlegging has become fetishized as an aesthetic in and of itself, influencing everything from underground record labels to DIY show more T-shirts, publishing ideologies, to acts of high fashion détournement.
UNLICENSED contains twenty-one interviews with a range of creative practitioners on the topic of bootlegging. The conversations in UNLICENSED investigate bootlegging’s creative and critical potential, and explore new ways bootlegging can be deployed in order to thrive as an impactful cultural force.

Ben Schwartz (1988) is a graphic designer and editor based in New York. He collaborates with several graphic design studios in the cultural sector across a variety of media. show less

I'm not giving this a star rating because I listened to it as an audio and I don't think that was a good choice for this particular work, especially since I couldn't access the PDFs while driving. It's funny, but I think it's probably funnier as printed words on a page and with the visuals being enjoyed at the same time.

A funny, quick read!

A very funny, quick read!