Except that it isn't, as already discussed, because the code doesn't change based on the design intent. The technical operation of the tool is identical whether it's used for interoperability or fair use or to rip songs for The Pirate Bay. The technical operation of the tool is identical whether it's produced by a university researcher or the developer of a media player app or a literal sea-faring pirate with a parrot and a peg leg who is the founder of a political movement to abolish copyright and promote civil disobedience.

But prohibiting a specific person (who may have had a particular intent) from distributing it is incoherent (or at least futile) if it means you can just get some other person with some other intent to distribute the exact same thing. And it's also incoherent to say that the other person can't distribute it even if they genuinely do have a different intent, if the intent is supposed to be what matters.

None of which depends on what you judge a give person's intent to be after the fact, because it's a defect in the legislation, not the judgment in any particular case.