If APIs are copyrightable, then presumably EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() would have to be considered a "technological protection measure" gating access to the API. That in turn would make Oracle's shim module a circumvention device.

Wouldn't that make using or distributing such a circumvention device would be a criminal act under the DMCA? It wouldn't even matter if using the API was a copyright infringement or not, since the DMCA deals with the act of circumvention itself.