AfterDawn: Tech news

Creative settles MP3 player capacity lawsuit

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 02 May 2008 6:06 User comments (20)

Creative settles MP3 player capacity lawsuit Creative has become the second company to settle with consumers over a class action lawsuit started in 2005 that companies are "misrepresenting the number of files and hours of songs that players could hold" and other exaggerated capacity claims. The other company was Seagate.
The plaintiffs argued that Creative's definition of a gigabyte was incorrect, which in turn led to false advertisement about the capacities of its players. Creative claimed that 1GB was exactly one billion bytes 1,000,000,000B when it is indeed 1,073,741,824B. Using that logic, the plaintiffs claimed that Creative's gigabytes were seven percent smaller than real gigabytes.

Creative has always claimed it had no intention of misleading consumers and denies that anyone has ever "suffered" from the way drive capacity was stated.



The new settlement has been made public now and anyone who purchased a Creative MP3 player from 2001 to 2004 can file a claim. Newer players all report that "available capacity will be less... reported capacity will vary" and thus are not eligible.

Anyone who files a claim (the last day is August 7th 2008) can either purchase a new 1GB Zen Stone music player at half price, about $18 dollars, or take a 20 percent off coupon for any item in Creative's online store.


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20 user comments

12.5.2008 19:26

I'm sorry but FFS!!!
Talk about taking the P!
People who claim through this are SCUM!
Maybe it's because i'm English and we have not truely embraced the claim culture (although it is slowly creeping in) but come on.
How could this simple and honest mistake possibly have caused anyone upset or distress?
A true disgrace and a stain on the human spirit.
Oh yeah 1st.
Andy

22.5.2008 21:27
PetahG
Inactive

I got to admit, thats pretty low lmao, but I wouldnr mind 20% off lmao

32.5.2008 21:47
varnull
Inactive

In that case EVERY dvd sold has been lying as well. dvd-5? 4.7GB? they only hold 4.43 "real" gigs.

TBH it's always been a bit of a grey area.. It's all back to the days of old..

1mb.. is that 1000kb's or 1024kb's?

At last that seems to be resolving and should see some rationality in the marking and advertising of media capacity.... sooooooo.. How many actual kb's does a BR disk hold.. and does that bear any relation whatsoever to it's reported (and advertised) gigs?

Lets see......

Anyway... Creative are still a name to avoid.. They have been screwing their customers for a long time. http://nerdgeek.liquidblade.com/?p=19

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 02 May 2008 @ 9:49

42.5.2008 22:00

Originally posted by andy1982:
I'm sorry but FFS!!!
Talk about taking the P!
People who claim through this are SCUM!
Maybe it's because i'm English and we have not truely embraced the claim culture (although it is slowly creeping in) but come on.
How could this simple and honest mistake possibly have caused anyone upset or distress?
A true disgrace and a stain on the human spirit.
Oh yeah 1st.
Andy
these corporations deserve every bit of the punishment they get.
i'm not saying this particular suit isn't frivolous,
just that large business always do enough damage to warrant being sued.

52.5.2008 22:01

Originally posted by varnull:
In that case EVERY dvd sold has been lying as well. dvd-5? 4.7GB? they only hold 4.43 "real" gigs.

TBH it's always been a bit of a grey area.. It's all back to the days of old..

1mb.. is that 1000kb's or 1024kb's?

At last that seems to be resolving and should see some rationality in the marking and advertising of media capacity.... sooooooo.. How many actual kb's does a BR disk hold.. and does that bear any relation whatsoever to it's reported (and advertised) gigs?

Lets see......

Anyway... Creative are still a name to avoid.. They have been screwing their customers for a long time. http://nerdgeek.liquidblade.com/?p=19


Agreed their sound cards suck unless you get the top of a line stuf..and even then they don't really support them.....

whats a good non creative sound card brand?

62.5.2008 22:37

Man! And I traded my Creative Zen 20gb for the Pioneer deck in my car... I could've gotten 20% off of ANYTHING from Creative...

73.5.2008 00:51

I don't know whatever happened to the concept of "Truth In Advertising", but it seems to be a dying breed.

Single-layer DVDs, as correctly pointed out, never DID hold "4.7" GB of data; MP3-players are mostly......(um).... "generously over-rated" by their makers' advertising departments, and even memory-chip-claims are genuinely bogus. (A 1-GB SD card, for example, does not hold 1-GB's-worth of data).

Simply printing on their packaging, the disclaimer "the capacity will be less than stated" is a frustrating and STOOPID declaration. (The same disclainmer packaged with my Lexar SD cards).

IF the capacity will be less, then WHY falsely market them as holding more in the first place?

Using a "1000x" multiplier instead of the proper 1024 multipler is a very cheap-&-cheesy marketing ploy, IMHO.

83.5.2008 03:46
nobrainer
Inactive

Originally posted by A_Klingon:
I don't know whatever happened to the concept of "Truth In Advertising", but it seems to be a dying breed.

Single-layer DVDs, as correctly pointed out, never DID hold "4.7" GB of data; MP3-players are mostly......(um).... "generously over-rated" by their makers' advertising departments, and even memory-chip-claims are genuinely bogus. (A 1-GB SD card, for example, does not hold 1-GB's-worth of data).

Simply printing on their packaging, the disclaimer "the capacity will be less than stated" is a frustrating and STOOPID declaration. (The same disclainmer packaged with my Lexar SD cards).

IF the capacity will be less, then WHY falsely market them as holding more in the first place?

Using a "1000x" multiplier instead of the proper 1024 multipler is a very cheap-&-cheesy marketing ploy, IMHO.
i completely agree but this has always been the way with storage, will this suit also effect every company that supplies hard drives, flash drives in their equipment.

what is off is how the marketing morons state that this device can hold x amount of songs as quality (file size) is never taken into account.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 03 May 2008 @ 3:53

93.5.2008 05:33

Originally posted by nobrainer:

what is off is how the marketing morons state that this device can hold x amount of songs as quality (file size) is never taken into account.
that is so very true - it makes me laugh when I see the crap that PC world and others put on their MP3 player stock or portable HDD "can hold 50,000 mp3s " - yeah right - if they are recorded at 32 kbps on a goblin teasmaid !!!!

103.5.2008 06:35
varnull
Inactive

Goblin Teasmade indeed.. Now there is a quality essential item.
Every home should have one.

113.5.2008 11:06

Quote:
Originally posted by varnull:
In that case EVERY dvd sold has been lying as well. dvd-5? 4.7GB? they only hold 4.43 "real" gigs.

TBH it's always been a bit of a grey area.. It's all back to the days of old..

1mb.. is that 1000kb's or 1024kb's?

At last that seems to be resolving and should see some rationality in the marking and advertising of media capacity.... sooooooo.. How many actual kb's does a BR disk hold.. and does that bear any relation whatsoever to it's reported (and advertised) gigs?

Lets see......

Anyway... Creative are still a name to avoid.. They have been screwing their customers for a long time. http://nerdgeek.liquidblade.com/?p=19


Agreed their sound cards suck unless you get the top of a line stuf..and even then they don't really support them.....

whats a good non creative sound card brand?
dude wtf are u talking about creative cards are great, buy m-audio go another brand, it's like video card u can either buy a nvidia gx2 wich is 600 or a 7600 wich is less than 200. when it comes to Audio ppl are cheap.
I've seen quad core with gx2 using realtek, come on!
want' good audio? go past the 200 tag

Creative is a good company never had problems with it's products everybody, lies about sizes, this is unfair no mather how big the company is

Let's remember is also the buyer's resposanbility to do some research before buying something, there are reviews all voer the web and if u spend 5 min at the store asking some questions u' know waht ur buying

123.5.2008 12:19

Quote:
Quote:
Originally posted by varnull:
In that case EVERY dvd sold has been lying as well. dvd-5? 4.7GB? they only hold 4.43 "real" gigs.

TBH it's always been a bit of a grey area.. It's all back to the days of old..

1mb.. is that 1000kb's or 1024kb's?

At last that seems to be resolving and should see some rationality in the marking and advertising of media capacity.... sooooooo.. How many actual kb's does a BR disk hold.. and does that bear any relation whatsoever to it's reported (and advertised) gigs?

Lets see......

Anyway... Creative are still a name to avoid.. They have been screwing their customers for a long time. http://nerdgeek.liquidblade.com/?p=19


Agreed their sound cards suck unless you get the top of a line stuf..and even then they don't really support them.....

whats a good non creative sound card brand?
dude wtf are u talking about creative cards are great, buy m-audio go another brand, it's like video card u can either buy a nvidia gx2 wich is 600 or a 7600 wich is less than 200. when it comes to Audio ppl are cheap.
I've seen quad core with gx2 using realtek, come on!
want' good audio? go past the 200 tag

Creative is a good company never had problems with it's products everybody, lies about sizes, this is unfair no mather how big the company is

Let's remember is also the buyer's resposanbility to do some research before buying something, there are reviews all voer the web and if u spend 5 min at the store asking some questions u' know waht ur buying
I personally have gone through 6 SB cards in the last 3 years(agudiy 4 and the FX seemed to last the longest,the SE cards die randomly.), some of their drivers are so bad people are trying to patch them while being btch at by creative, creative is no longer the quality manufacturer they where.

134.5.2008 03:13

1 GB (Gigabyte) is 1,000,000,000B. Period.
1 GiB (Gibibyte) is 1,073,741,824B. Check wikipedia or google it, this is a fact.

Consumers whine, yet they are all wrong and Creative is right.
So are some of you. 1 GB is always 1 GB. Windows incorrectly uses GB instead of GiB. That's probably where you've picked up that 1 GB might be 1024 MB.

Nothing wrong with creative giving away free money or 20%-off coupons though.

144.5.2008 06:36

SSW:

You are absolutely right! Today, I just got a new education. I simply cannot believe my eyes, BUT........ (you are indeed) quite correct.

I just Googled/Wikipedia'd both terms, and I have to admit - the detailed, extensive information given for GB versus GiB is quite an eye-opener. This is the *first* time I have ever heard tell of the term "Gibibyte" in all my many years of computering.

Most of the info is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GiB

(And hell, we wont't even get into "Gigabits" here!) <gg>

I DO wish to god this term had never been invented - it's confusing to an insane degree to have both names being (generally) referred to as the same thing. As much as I hate to admit it, and despite my reservations at doing so, I must now contemplate the possibility that the blank-disc manufacturers were (maybe) right all along...... a single-layer, DVD-5 blank disc does indeed hold 4.7 GB of data.

But it goes against everything I've ever learned about "KBs, MBs, and GBs".

DAMN CONFUSING!!!!!! (But thank you for the clarification, SSW).

154.5.2008 06:39
nobrainer
Inactive

Originally posted by A_Klingon:


But it goes against everything I've ever learned about "KBs, MBs, and GBs".

DAMN CONFUSING!!!!!! (But thank you for the clarification, SSW).
you are joking? this is sarcasm, yes?

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 04 May 2008 @ 6:40

164.5.2008 08:42
varnull
Inactive

It's typical doublespeak.. making a standard which just causes confusion by SOUNDING the same as the accepted amount, whilst in reality being open to interpretation/doublespeak.

What's the betting this "other" standard.. gibibyte (which after 30 years around computers is a new one to me as well) was pushed through the ISO by manufacturers of storage media.

Just like internet speeds.. 2 standards allowing providers/sellers to rip people off/pull the wool/downright lie about stuff.

Still has no effect on the courts ruling,. Creative have probably never heard of the term either. Everything should be specified in bytes... now is a byte 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 64 or 128 bits? ...and what about nibbles????

ps.. to stand up for creative over product quality and customer support and service just shows fanboyism (probably paid for by creative).. Better products are available elsewhere.. a couple more f--kwits outed here nb ;)

***reaches for nice cuppa created by loft salvaged Goblin Teasmade.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 04 May 2008 @ 8:52

174.5.2008 23:52

Check this link for an explanation of gigabyte.

[url=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci212194,00.html]

185.5.2008 09:56

Originally posted by P51ride:
Check this link for an explanation of gigabyte.

[url=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci212194,00.html]
Yes, TO ME, *that* is the correct meaning. Always has been, always will be.

I think I'll take back what I said earlier about the blank disc manufacturers having "been honest all along" with their "4.7GB" claim. The claim is a lie.

According to the Wikipedia folks, this "Gibibyte" nonsense was cobbled together around 2007. WELL! Blank dvds have been around for a hell of a lot longer than that, and their manufacturers have *always* claimed 4.7 GB of capacity, which we all know is a great big fib. At least the blank CD folks got it right with their claims of 650 and 700 MB.

It seems to me this new-&-improved 'Gibibyte' fiasco was conjured up after-the-fact to let blank storage media-makers off the hook with their bogus capacity claims, nothing more.

Quote:
you are joking? this is sarcasm, yes?

No, nobrainer, this is not sarcasm and I am not joking. When I kid around, I try to say something so obviously out-of-whack that no one in their right mind could possibly believe it (and say it with a straight face) - but this time, I am just tired of all the bulls*** corporations bandy around, trying to cover-their-asses and dupe the consumer.

Quote:
It's typical doublespeak.. making a standard which just causes confusion by SOUNDING the same as the accepted amount, whilst in reality being open to interpretation/doublespeak.

Yep, I think you're right, varnull, (by the way, that was a very good post) - and I also agree that manufacturers should be forced to express their products' capacities in terms of bytes, not GibiBytes, or GooberBytes, or Gone-With-The-WindBytes, or ..... (I wonder why they never came up with a MibiByte to describe a Megabyte???), or a KibiByte to express the capacity of a 1.44 MB floppy disc?

Whether it's blank disc media, an SD memory card, internal flash memory, PC-Ram modules, memory sticks, or the capacity of my new boxer-shorts, TO ME....

1 TeraByte (TB) will always = 1024 Gigabytes (MB)
1 Gigabyte (GB) will always = 1024 Megabytes (MB)
1 Megabyte (MB) will always = 1024 Kilobytes (KB)

etc. etc. ....

Anything else is a lie.

I wonder when the Purina Dog Chow folks are going to change their "Kibbles-&-Bits" pet foods to "Kibbles-&-Bytes" or "Kibbis-&-Bits" ??)

OY !!!! :-D

196.5.2008 03:04

Greed - 0


Justice (at last) - 1

206.5.2008 04:17

As far as hard drives go, I've NEVER seen a hard drive spec/manual/packaging that didn't declare the stated capacity is measured as "1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes" and as UNFORMATTED capacity. I hadn't really looked at many of the memory cards to see if they did the same thing, but it's hardly surprising since that's what HD manufacturers used.

Creative IS responsible if they claimed in advertising that a specific # of 5MB MP3 files fit on their device and it's actually up to 10% less or whatever. Dunno why Seagate is also named unless some of their retail packaging (esp. external drives) also made the same mistake -- if they were just the source of the drive for some other company's device, they shouldn't be at all to blame. Often the marketing people for companies are as clueless as most consumers in the tech ignorance department.

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