Singapore mobile music specialist Creative Technology Limited has this week settled a class action lawsuit against it by offering select customers access to as much as 50 percent off the price of a new MP3 player.
Creative offers customer credit in class action settlement. Image: Creative.
The lawsuit was brought against the portable multimedia device manufacturer in direct relation to allegations claiming that it was guilty of misleading customers as to the true storage capacity of its HDD-based products.
Tech site PC Pro reports that Creative calculated said capacity by utilising ‘base 10 notation,’ which outlines a storage gigabyte as being made up of a billion bytes, rather than ‘base 2 notation,’ which describes a precise gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes.
By using base 10 notation, Creative was thereby claiming that its devices were capable of offering users access to storage beyond their actual capacity limitations.
While Creative has yet to divulge any official comment with regards to the settlement, any customer who bought a hard disk drive player from the company since 2001 will be eligible for a credit discount on a replacement device.
Notably, any customer accepting Creative’s offer will be doing so on the proviso that they agree to waive the right to initiate future legal proceedings against the company.
In return for giving up that right, users submitting a valid claim (namely with an accompanying receipt for their device) will be granted either a 50 percent reduction on the price of a new 1GB MP3 player, or a 20 percent credit certificate redeemable against any single Creative product.
Creative’s settlement follows a similar legal action brought against California-based HDD maker Seagate Technology, which similarly sought and secured an out-of-court settlement in the matter.
With many leading HDD product manufacturers utilising base 10 notation in assessing GB storage, it remains to be seen whether Seagate and Creative’s cases exist as the first in a wave of onrushing class action battles as customers seek to bring notable industry players to heel.
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