According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the makers of the gaming consoles, game developers, and others in the industry have incurred billions of dollars in losses worldwide due to sales lost to those selling counterfeit and pirated video games.Counterfeiting and piracy is estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $200 billion and $250 billion annually and results in the loss of up to 750,000 jobs according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.From the August 1st press release on the ICE website.A response, characteristic of the hacker mentality outlined many places and occasionally in published works such as “A Hacker Manifesto” (McKenzie Wark)and possibly”The Hacker Ethic” (Pekka Himanen, Linus Torvalds)was presented in response to the raids:Much like the media slant against hackers in general the act of modding is criminalized in the US. I look at modding as an act of expression and something someone does to expand their own knowledge and use of a system…. Of course XBMC can only be used on a modified Xbox and while it would be possible to build and run such an application on a normal PC the novelty is in the utilization of cheap hardware (the Xbox costs less than $100 these days) and in many cases it’s not only hardware you already own but hardware that already fits properly within a TV room environment making it quite ideal, if it weren’t for the fact that it is illegal to use the free XBMC software with the Xbox hardware you own under the DMCA.said Twistedsymphony It is well known that the statistics put forward by groups such as the RIAA, MPAA, ESA, and BSA (to name a few) are on shaky factual ground.