I think the OP gets the point, serious replies only from here on to avoid confusion please 
As MaJoR said, U.S. law is pretty clear on the issue of emulation. Dolphin contains no copyrighted code from Nintendo as far as we are aware of, and everything has been reverse-engineered, so copyright infringement and patents are not an issue. The Dolphin Forums and the Dev Team specifically call out and discourage piracy, so we avoid "inducing or facilitating copyright infringement". IANAL, but these problems are so common in the emulation community that those of us who have been around for a while know the relevant court cases and rulings by heart now.
Again, I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can only speak for this country and its laws. If you live somewhere else, chances are yes, it's legal, but we read up on the laws if you want a clearer answer.
As MaJoR said, U.S. law is pretty clear on the issue of emulation. Dolphin contains no copyrighted code from Nintendo as far as we are aware of, and everything has been reverse-engineered, so copyright infringement and patents are not an issue. The Dolphin Forums and the Dev Team specifically call out and discourage piracy, so we avoid "inducing or facilitating copyright infringement". IANAL, but these problems are so common in the emulation community that those of us who have been around for a while know the relevant court cases and rulings by heart now.
Again, I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can only speak for this country and its laws. If you live somewhere else, chances are yes, it's legal, but we read up on the laws if you want a clearer answer.