Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Hey Guys,

Do any of you have the play-by-play gamebook of the 1969 AFL Playoff game between the Chiefs and the Jets at Shea Stadium? Thanks so much.

Sincerely,
Joe Zagorski

It's in the Jets 1969 folder of the Gamebooks on the site.

This is where Same Ol Jets began. Namath was just hideous that day. Stenerud also had a game to forget having all sorts of issues with the Shea winds.

Jay Z wrote:It's in the Jets 1969 folder of the Gamebooks on the site.

I wish the gamebook area was set up so that you could open the link for a season and review the games available for each season.

I for one am a little disappointed with the gamebooks area in that those who run the area only seem to be putting in the most recent season and there seems to be no collective effort to try to expand the collecton beyond that. For example, practically every Packers game from the 1930's has a very detailed write-up in the next day's Green Bay Press Gazette which is just as good as play by play and a lot more descriptive. The Detroit Free Press did the same thing for some Lions games in the 1930's. There is the issue of copyrighted material from the newspaper being put on the site, but aren't gamebooks copyrighted also and we have them on our site? it would be nice if we could collect this information from newspapers and make them available. In addition, there is a lot of gamefilm out there, and I have some myself, and I plan to find the time to go thru the gamefilm and convert it to play-by-play. There also hasn't been to the best of my knowledge any type of effort to try to contact various teams to see if they have any gamebooks or PBP in their archives in a number of years. This is probably a good idea to reach out to teams every few years as the people who run the departments change and sometimes new documents are located. Maybe there are things being done with the site other than the most recent season being put up, but I'm not seeing it.

Rupert Patrick wrote:

Jay Z wrote:It's in the Jets 1969 folder of the Gamebooks on the site.

I wish the gamebook area was set up so that you could open the link for a season and review the games available for each season.

I for one am a little disappointed with the gamebooks area in that those who run the area only seem to be putting in the most recent season and there seems to be no collective effort to try to expand the collecton beyond that. For example, practically every Packers game from the 1930's has a very detailed write-up in the next day's Green Bay Press Gazette which is just as good as play by play and a lot more descriptive. The Detroit Free Press did the same thing for some Lions games in the 1930's. There is the issue of copyrighted material from the newspaper being put on the site, but aren't gamebooks copyrighted also and we have them on our site? it would be nice if we could collect this information from newspapers and make them available. In addition, there is a lot of gamefilm out there, and I have some myself, and I plan to find the time to go thru the gamefilm and convert it to play-by-play. There also hasn't been to the best of my knowledge any type of effort to try to contact various teams to see if they have any gamebooks or PBP in their archives in a number of years. This is probably a good idea to reach out to teams every few years as the people who run the departments change and sometimes new documents are located. Maybe there are things being done with the site other than the most recent season being put up, but I'm not seeing it.

I believe it was put out that gamebooks could be written up from other sources and they would be posted on the site. So if you or someone wants to do that, it would have a home.

Rupert Patrick wrote:There is the issue of copyrighted material from the newspaper being put on the site, but aren't gamebooks copyrighted also and we have them on our site? it would be nice if we could collect this information from newspapers and make them available.

Facts are not subject to copyright, so we are free to transcribe and publish play-by-play from newspaper accounts and gamebooks to our heart's content as long as we don't mimic the specific language or form used in the original source.

From Copyright.gov: "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."

ehaight wrote:

Rupert Patrick wrote:There is the issue of copyrighted material from the newspaper being put on the site, but aren't gamebooks copyrighted also and we have them on our site? it would be nice if we could collect this information from newspapers and make them available.

Facts are not subject to copyright, so we are free to transcribe and publish play-by-play from newspaper accounts and gamebooks to our heart's content as long as we don't mimic the specific language or form used in the original source.

From Copyright.gov: "Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."

The current NFL gamebook carries the following copyright disclaimer, which says: "NFL Copyright (copyright symbol with C inside circle and year) by the National Football League. All rights reserved. This summary and play-by-play is for the express purpose of assisting media in their coverage of the game; any other use of this material is prohibited without the written permission of the National Football League."

The newspaper summaries would not be transcribed, but articles that would be electronically cut and pasted out of online archived newspapers (for example, an entire article from the Chicago Tribune from the day after the 1940 NFL Championship game about the game) and saved into pdf files. It is not illegal in any way, Newspapers.com has tools to allow users to clip articles and then download them onto your computer as pdf files, and the other online newspaper archives have similar tools.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think as long as the entire article is included, along with the article title and author, there should be no problem making it available if it is a full game summary, provided the newspaper name, date and page numbers and put in the pdf name so that also shows up and proper credit is given to everybody. Also, one has all the information and can verify the source if necessary.

I would have a problem with transcribing word from word out of a newspaper article, which I think would be libel, taking credit for somebody else's work. However, to take a newspaper summary, or radio or TV broadcast, and convert that into a play-by-play, which I have done before, is a different thing. Creating a play-by-play from other media is more of an interpretation.

Rupert Patrick wrote:
I would have a problem with transcribing word from word out of a newspaper article, which I think would be libel, taking credit for somebody else's work.

You mean plagiarism. Libel refers to slandering someone's character in print.