And I think you’ve hit on the major source of my discomfort with section 13, Steve. Vagueness of this sort requires trust that will always be tinged with a tiny bit of fear, and that tiny bit of fear will stifle creativity. I see that same thing happen with fair use decisions all the time, and even section 107 of copyright law (which is famously vague) gives a few concrete examples of things that are permissible when it says that “multiple copies for classroom use” count as fair. OCLC’s section 13 only gives negative examples, leaving very little room to imagine viable Reasonable Uses.

Has anyone who is not an OCLC employee come forward to say “this is really necessary and good, and helpful to OCLC member libraries and/or the public at large?”

The policy and especially the section 13 that you highlight seems to depend on a certain amount of trust that OCLC won’t all of a sudden try to shut down projects it doesn’t like. And I dislike legalistic policies that depend on a “oh, just trust that we won’t enforce that to the full.”