Congress Makes It Easier to Use Unpublished Documents

By Stephen Burd

Washington, D.C. -- Congress has passed legislation that will make it easier for scholars to use quotations from unpublished documents. The President is expected to sign it into law.

Lawmakers intended the measure to clarify rules on how scholars and journalists may have "fair use" of excerpts from unpublished material, such as diaries and letters.

Historians, biographers, and literary scholars frequently use quotations and selected passages from their subjects' letters and