It's how the DMCA works though, if the media has any DRM on it.

That is exactly why on some countries there is an additional copy tax on that stuff.

don't forget debuggers, disassemblers and hexdump tools ;) ...

I don't disagree with you, but if you look at how the law is interpreted, and used 'succesfully' by lawyers. I do think I am right. I think further it's mainly a case of, like other people suggested, circumventing active protections, and also how its 'most commonly used'.

For emulators, the most common use is not the creators and hobbyist trying to keep stuff alive. The most common use is people downloading the stuff who never owned a console or said games, and them playing stuff.

For CD burners you might claim the same, but there's no protections circumvented by the majority users. CD's can just be copied, there's no protection mechanisms. There's warning labels not to distribute copies though, which is against the law. The act of making a copy isn't included in such notices.

It's usually something around distributing illegal copies as far as i've seen them. Not "making copies".

It is not the entirety of how it works but determining the primary intended use case of a technology is part of how it works.

Is it a coincidence every one of those pieces of tech have been under controversy? Yes, companies have been against easily copying their works for decades, and the laws are wishy washy until someone angry enough to challenge it rises up.

But odds are, if you have that kind of money you benefit from keeping it vauge.