It doesn’t. Encryption keys are not code and are not copyrightable. Distributing them is also not illegal. The word “proprietary” here is meaningless at best and dishonest at worst.
Of course actually using that key to circumvent drm may be illegal, but I’m no lawyer. Send like that would be on Dolphin’s users anyway.
Food for thought: if Nintendo genuinely thought they had a good legal argument against Dolphin, why wouldn’t they just send them a cease and desist directly instead of just getting them kicked off Steam?
They very well might now - valve went to Nintendo to ask about dolphin. Nintendo might not have looked into it previously but now they have. They recently got the android switch emulator “skyline” shut down via dcma. Dolphin might be next.
