Gigabytes vs. gibibytes class action suit nears end

News.com ^ | 12/05/2007 | Declan McCullagh

[Red in Blue PA]

A long-running California lawsuit over whether all megabytes and gigabytes are created equal may have reached its end on Friday.

The class action lawsuit against Kodak, Sandisk, Lexar Media, and other memory card makers alleges that the defendants intentionally misrepresented the capacity of their flash memory devices by using decimal definitions, in which a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. The suit says a binary definition is appropriate, meaning that one megabyte equals 1,048,576 bytes and that the memory card sizes were overstated by 4 percent to 5 percent.

When memory capacity was smaller, the difference didn't mean much. A decimal kilobyte, at 10^3=1,000 wasn't very different from 2^10=1,024.

But as capacity grows, the differences become more significant (technically, the ratio between the decimal and binary representations increases). This explains why your new terabyte drive isn't as capacious as you hoped it might be. A 10^12=1,000,000,000,000 decimal terabyte is roughly 10 percent smaller than the binary equivalent of 2^40=1,099,511,627,776. Here's more background on why computers work this way.

So the class action lawyers sued five flash memory card makers, alleging breach of contract, fraud, and violations of California's unfair competition laws.

[ConservativeMind]

Nice to see lawyers aren’t loosing sight of their next meal.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Golly, I’ll bet one of these days they will go after “big lumber” for overstating the actual size of 2x4’s...

[brownsfan]

“So the class action lawyers sued ... “

Result: The lawyers got a fat paycheck, and the consumer paid more for memory cards, thumb drives and other storage.

I seriously doubt most consumers would notice the difference between a decimal GB and a computer GB.

Until/unless we get a handle on this kind of nonsense, we will continue to screw up our own economy. But the John Edwards of the world will be quite happy in their 28 acre compounds with multiple buildings.

[Maceman]

I would love to see a law stating that class action suits cannot be certified unless each individual class member’s damages meets or exceeds a $5,000 minimum threshold.

Such a law would eliminate cases where the class members get a few dollars in coupons (or some other pittance) while the lawyers walk away with millions of dollars.

[Always Right]

The class action lawsuit against Kodak, Sandisk, Lexar Media, and other memory card makers alleges that the defendants intentionally misrepresented the capacity of their flash memory devices by using decimal definitions, in which a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. The suit says a binary definition is appropriate, meaning that one megabyte equals 1,048,576 bytes and that the memory card sizes were overstated by 4 percent to 5 percent.

A megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes. Just because computers are binary and gave you a few free ones for years does not change the definition. Most lawyers are worthless scum who will chase any buck.

[Always Right]

I would love to see a law stating that class action suits cannot be certified unless each individual class member’s damages meets or exceeds a $5,000 minimum threshold.

Even $500 would work. The only winners in these suits are the worthless lawyers trying to make millions off of some stupid nit.

[Red Badger]

Your memory mileage may vary..................

[azhenfud]

Okay, so 4% of my salary won’t buy much, but 4% of yours might buy a nice vacation...

4% is 4%

It’s all in relativity.

China’s margin of error in their census is as large as the entire population of FRANCE.

[Red Badger]

The suit says a binary definition is appropriate, meaning that one megabyte equals 1,048,576 bytes and that the memory card sizes were overstated by 4 percent to 5 percent.

Semantics from semen ticks................

[jiggyboy]

I’ll say it again, this has been settled law for a decade. Sandisk must not even have a lawyer.

[krb]

A megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes.

Until you try to buy a 1,000,000 byte SRAM chip...

[Traveler59]

There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't. ;)

-Traveler

[sasquatch]

Great!

[jdege]

I want to see a class action lawsuit against all the class action lawyers, by the myriad plaintiffs who were supposedly the beneficiaries of all these awards.

[Always Right]

Until you try to buy a 1,000,000 byte SRAM chip...

Just because they gave you a bakers dozen when you bought 1 dozen, doesn't mean they have to give you 52 when you buy 4 dozens. Just lawyers trying to take advantage of round off. I wish there was a way for a judge to take away their law license for a year for filing such garbage.

[Always Right]

There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't. ;) -Traveler

And a gigabyte is a base 10 number. So trying to make the case about some fictional binary gigabyte number is silly.

[Constitution Day]

Golly, I’ll bet one of these days they will go after “big lumber” for overstating the actual size of 2x4’s...

Oh hell. NOW you've done it. Don't give them any ideas!

[nostrum09]

Don’t forget too that most (perhaps all?) devices which have a quoted size such as 512MB, for example, normally have a disclaimer on the package which states “where 1MB is equal to 1,000,000 bytes.”

Until recently I hadn’t heard of the mebi, gibi, tebi prefixes, but I still knew how consumer devices differed from the nice 2^x system.

[P-Marlowe]

The end result is that the lawyers will walk away with millions of bucks, the price of memory cards will go up dramatically and if I'm willing to spend half a day filling out a lengthy docmument and risk perjury charges for making a mistake on that document, I might be entitled to a half a dollar coupon on my next purchase of a memory card.

Such a deal.