What even is the point of emulators being legal if they have to tiptoe around the whims of companies like Nintendo? People have the right to run their software

What even is the point of emulators being legal if they have to tiptoe around the whims of companies like Nintendo? People have the right to run their software after the hardware required to run it has been discontinued, and emulators are the way to do that. That Nintendo is overly litigious because they want to make easy money rereleasing their classics on every new console generation forever doesn't mean they can stomp over that right, and emulators should be free to distribute themselves how they wish.