Perhaps that's true, but not because it would be piracy. Backing up media for personal has a pretty strong fair use claim, so I don't think it should be considered copyright infringement.

But there is also the DMCA, and the anti-circumvention provision, which can be attributed a lot more to the user backing up their game than it can be to the developers of the emulator. But that wouldn't be the same thing as copyright infringement.

That said, if the"interoperability exception" applies to anything at all, I feel like it should apply here. You are circumventing copy protection mechanisms for the explicit purpose of interoperability with other software.

On moral grounds, I also have absolutely no qualms whatsoever with someone circumventing copy protection mechanisms to make a copy of a thing they bought to use for personal use. The fact that that could be potentially illegal at all is disgusting.