Pro Football Weekly

[StevenBrainerd]

Does anybody know if PRO FOOTBALL WEEKLY has been scanned on to the net?

[JohnTurney]

It hasn't. It would be nice. A lot of good info over the years....

[7DnBrnc53]

I especially would like to see their draft preview issues from the early-70's. I tried to order the 1972 one from Claremont Shows, but they didn't have it.

[Rupert Patrick]

I've got a bunch from the mid 70's, late 70's and early 80's. If anybody has the issue that covers the games from Week 12 of the 1967 NFL season (December 3rd), please PM me; there are two missed field goal distances I need that would probably be listed in that particular magazine.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

You could email Hub Arkush and ask him directly if anything is available: harkush@profootballweekly.com.

[Rupert Patrick]

I don't know if anybody would be interested in this, but there is an auction on Ebay for a complete collection of Pro Football Weekly from 1987 to 2011 up for auction. The asking price is 350 plus 75 shipping, but it is over 680 issues in pristine condition. I made a best offer and he counter offered it but after thinking about it long and hard, I just didn't have the space for all these magazines and politely declined. I thought I would pass it on if anybody here was interested. (PS: his counter offer was 300 so if you offered 300 you could get it.)

[RRMarshall]

Years ago SABR's library underwent a project to duplicating all the Sporting News microfilm collection and making it available to members on a lend base. Since Paper Of Record made TSN available online people don't use the film much any longer. If I understand correctly the Pro Football HOF library has PFW on microfilm, and if we could form a committee to look into the cost of scanning all of these issues into a data base or duplicating the microfilm it would be a worthwhile effort. I would certainly contribute to it, but a cost analysis would have to be done to see if it would be feasible. I know the PFRA membership isn't as large as that of SABR's but is it conceivable something like this could be accomplished??

[rhickok1109]

Years ago SABR's library underwent a project to duplicating all the Sporting News microfilm collection and making it available to members on a lend base. Since Paper Of Record made TSN available online people don't use the film much any longer. If I understand correctly the Pro Football HOF library has PFW on microfilm, and if we could form a committee to look into the cost of scanning all of these issues into a data base or duplicating the microfilm it would be a worthwhile effort. I would certainly contribute to it, but a cost analysis would have to be done to see if it would be feasible. I know the PFRA membership isn't as large as that of SABR's but is it conceivable something like this could be accomplished??

I think copyright might be a major issue, especially since making it available in a database would cut down on TSN's page views. Still, I agree it's worth looking into.

[Rupert Patrick]

I was really interested in purchasing these, but the fact it was 12 boxes of magazines and the guy was in Canada (and there is no telling what the shipping costs would be) made it prohibitive for me to purchase them. I already have more books and magazines about football than I can possibly read. I have considered the possibility of a group buy and somehow converting them to pdf and making them available in Members Only and whether that was legal or not. (If such a thing were somehow legal, I have a lot of PFW from the 70's and early 80's I would be willing to convert to pdf and add to the collection.) We do have a couple lawyers in the forum, perhaps they can chime in, but I think in the end it is a pipe dream due to the copyrights.

[ChrisBabcock]

I had a lot of copyright law drilled into my brain for training at a previous job. To my understanding, to digitize a publication for public use would require permission from Pro Football Weekly or their legal heir. Because essentially “another copy” comes into existence when scanning it in, and the copyright holder has the right to control how many copies of something exists. Even the member’s only section of our site would be considered public (however limited). I’d guess there’s no way in heck they would agree to true public availability but if it’s explained that it would be for PFRA members only that would be worth a shot. Also, I believe digitizing something for personal use is perfectly legal.

We dealt with this a lot when I was working at Kinko’s in my post-college days and folks would come in wanting color copies of their kids professionally done Olan Mills school photos.