Wheel of Time TV Pilot Producers Sue Robert Jordan's Widow For Defamation 148
An anonymous reader writes The tale of the late-night Wheel of Time pilot that aired in a paid infomercial slot on FXX has taken another odd turn. Producers Red Eagle Entertainment LLC and Manetheren LLC have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for central California against Harriet McDougal (widow of James Rigney, who wrote the Wheel of Time novels under the pen name Robert Jordan), her company, Bandersnatch Group Inc., and twenty unnamed other persons ('Does 1-20'). The suit alleges that McDougal's statements about her lack of involvement in the pilot's production constitute breach of contract, slander, and interference with contractual relations and prospective economic relations; the suit demands declaratory relief and a jury trial.
Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:2, Interesting)
You looked at me funny, see you in court.
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/oblg. <voice="Yakov Smirnoff">
"America: Where you can sue anyone, anytime, for anything!"
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't when you consider that the plaintiff's goals may well have nothing to do with 'recovering damages', insomuch as they're probably doing it to shut her up and at the same time please/placate their investors.
Fuck them and their SCO-spirited kin in either case.
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting sued for being honest about not doing something is a bit much though, even for USA.
According to the plaintiffs, she was not being honest. There is also the matter that, according to the plaintiffs, she was paid (indirectly through her husband's estate) and contractually bound to keep her mouth shut. I have no idea what "the truth" is, but I don't think it is black and white. If she doesn't want to abide by the terms of the contract, she should at least be compelled to disgorge the money she was paid.
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also the matter that, according to the plaintiffs, she was paid (indirectly through her husband's estate) and contractually bound to keep her mouth shut.
Contracts don't work indirectly like that. Either you agree to the terms directly or you don't. As all legal organizations including the SCOTUS recognized, a valid contract requires free consent.
Either she was a party to the contract with it's nondisparagement clause, and agreed to keep her mouth shut about all production details, or she was not part of the contract and the company is in the wrong. Her statement was that the show made during her husband's life and with her husband's contract was done "without my knowledge or cooperation," which is quite likely since her then-living husband likely took care of his own business deals.
Some portions of a contract may survive a death and transfer to estates. Others automatically dissolve completely (such as partnership agreements between two people) or require affirmation that the new parties accept the new terms of a new, successor agreement. Binding nondisparagement terms do not transfer to other people.
On its face it looks like the company made an agreement with a now deceased individual. The question is one of contract law. If she signed the contract then she was bound and shouldn't have said anything. But if she didn't sign the agreements, she should be adding a counter-claim.
Can they produce such a contract? Do they have a nondisparagement agreement that SHE signed? That's the key to the entire dispute.
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Informative)
According to the CEO of Red Eagle Entertainment:
1. Their rights were about to expire.
2. They did it without FXX's knowledge which was achieved by purchasing a late-night infomercial time slot.
3. He claims it was high budget but the results, if you've watched the pilot, says otherwise...In other words is was terrible beyond measure.
He also goes on to claim that they plan to do a blockbuster quality movie adaptation and boldly says that he plans to directly challenge the Game of Thrown series on HBO.
To me it seems like Red Eagle Entertainment has some serious grandiose delusions most especially if their contract is about to expire, if not already, and have gone to battle with the wife of the author which will likely end with them losing any chance of further working with Robert Jordans' literature ever again...
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Interesting)
Master of understatement there.
I've seen better stuff done by highschoolers in the early 1980s with a budget of less than $50 in only a week.
(No lie, it was some friends of mine.)
This was obviously a simple attempt at securing a cash grab and was done in bad faith and what I suspect is very questionable validity in the first place.
(ianal)
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You can't challenge Game of Thrones with Wheel of Time.
The heck you can't.
Even if I used every volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, all of the Calendars, Atlases and Graphic Novels, I still couldn't prop up this desk nearly high enough to reach the window. Wheel of Time can do all that and still leave me with two extra books to straighten out the chair.
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The heck you can't.
Even if I used every volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, all of the Calendars, Atlases and Graphic Novels, I still couldn't prop up this desk nearly high enough to reach the window. Wheel of Time can do all that and still leave me with two extra books to straighten out the chair.
If sheer word count is the only qualifier, then yes, Wheel of Time would come out on top!
When a serious adaptation of Wheel of Time gets made, I hope they hire quality writers, as well as the strong, forceful editor that Jordan needed and never had.
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Interesting)
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So it depends upon whether the contract was signed under the author's business or as an individual, right? I'm guessing either is plausible, so it's simply a matter of looking at the original wording of the contract to see who signed it. Was it signed by James Rigney or by Robert Jordan, Inc. I'm not a lawyer, just asking questions.
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Interesting... if the contract was signed to by Robert Jordan Inc. And then Robert Jordan, Inc. became Bandersnatch Group. Since she's the CEO of the Bandersnatch Group and she spoke in that capacity, she's kind out of luck.
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Informative)
The estate is a separate legal entity from any person. Contracts that flow into the estate remain binding upon the estate. Ergo, she doesn't need to have signed it; it's still binding upon the estate.
The distinction that people seem to be missing is that nobody is squelching her freedom of speech as an individual, but rather as a beneficiary of the estate. Again, remember that the estate is its own legal entity. She's not being sued as J. Random Person, but rather as somebody who profits from that estate. As a beneficiary, she's also subject to its contracts. If she breaches those contracts, she's subject to suit in her capacity as beneficiary, and can be forced to disgorge her profits from the estate.
(Note: I practice in probate law.)
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This seems to me extremely unlikely.
My uncle dies. He wrote a book and has a significant estate. In his will he leaves me the revenue from that estate.
I don't see how I could possibly be bound by any contracts involving that estate at all.
Unless there is some agreement that the estate has signed that says the revenue will be cut off to me if I say negative things against the estate. In which case suing me is completely pointless. I still have nothing to do with it. You would need to sue the estate to g
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My uncle dies. He wrote a book and has a significant estate. In his will he leaves me the revenue from that estate.
I don't see how I could possibly be bound by any contracts involving that estate at all.
Try this. Your uncle writes a book that has significant value. He forms a corporation which owns the rights to that book, has the corporation enter into a number of contracts and then names you as CEO. At that point it doesn't matter if he lives, dies, or is abducted by aliens and carried off to Betelgeuse VI. The corporation, not the individual, is responsible.
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They may be pulling a SCO, and merely making unsubstantiated claims to fuel an ultimately futile and unfounded lawsuit in an attempt to make money.
Contract survived estate (Score:2)
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That's the purpose of copyright extending X years past death -- so the holder can negotiate deals with others, who can feel safe in investing in publication or other use, without fear a careening bus can take it all away tomorrow.
It would be meaningless if just the ownership right survived and not the contracts based on it.
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Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL in the USA, but my theory is this.
The contact was probably between Universal Studios and Bandersnatch Group and it included a non-disparagement agreement. From the article here (http://www.tor.com/blogs/2015/02/wheel-of-time-pilot-harriet-statement) it looks like she was speaking in her capacity as the CEO of Bandersnatch Group.
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If the contract with the non-disparagement clause was with Universal then a) it doesn't apply since this wasn't a Universal production, and b) Red Eagle would have no standing to invoke it.
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Sorry, I made a mistake. What if the contract was between Red Eagle and Bandersnatch Group?
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I have no idea what "the truth" is, but I don't think it is black and white.
It's increasingly apparent that the color of "the truth" is green - $$$.
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Did he say anything incorrect?
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:4, Funny)
It sounds like the truth is fouled by the touch of the Dark One, like water with a thin slick of rancid oil floating on top. The water is still pure, but it could not be touched without touching the foulness.
Settlement? (Score:2)
Getting sued for being honest about not doing something is a bit much though, even for USA.
According to the plaintiffs, she was not being honest. There is also the matter that, according to the plaintiffs, she was paid (indirectly through her husband's estate) and contractually bound to keep her mouth shut. I have no idea what "the truth" is, but I don't think it is black and white. If she doesn't want to abide by the terms of the contract, she should at least be compelled to disgorge the money she was paid.
They may just be trying to sue her as a negotiating tactic, in the hope of forcing a settlement over the rights, or something.
If she has tucked away the money the series made over the years, she should have at least a couple of million available and be able to cover the 50-200K in lawyer fees.
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" If she doesn't want to abide by the terms of the contract, she should at least be compelled to disgorge the money she was paid."
Certainly doable, but then that would generally void the contract on both sides and the movie itself is lost. So no, the company doing the suing doesn't want that.
I'd like to know if she herself signed the contract. From the sounds of it, she's being bound by it the actions of the Estate itself. So... did she promise to keep her mouth shut, or did someone else promise she'd keep her mouth shut?
If she wants to enjoy the profits of the estate she should also abide by its constraints. Nothing it preventing her from completely disclaiming her rights in same.
Re: Welcome to the U.S. of A. (Score:1)
Gods, you people are dense. The people aren't unknown; they're unnamed. That's probably pursuant to the "shut up" clause of the very contact they're trying to enforce.
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Besides, they're are a greedy bunch of trolls that see a possible jackpot just barely out of reach and are doing everything they can to get their grubby claws on it.
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Sadly, not any more.
Besides, they're are a greedy bunch of TROLLOCS that see a possible jackpot just barely out of reach and are doing everything they can to get their grubby claws on it.
FTFY
Pen name? (Score:3, Informative)
Robert Jordan wasn't his name?? All those years... And I didn't know.
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Wow that is right up there with birthers, and 911 conspiracy theorists.
If you said sometime around book 9 I might have believed you too. especially since sanderson only took over with book 9 and 10. You can tell by the sudden change in writing style and language use. Heck I could see it half way through book 9.
Re:Pen name? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, Sanderson only did books 12, 13 and 14.
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And a damn good job he did, as much as I love the series, the middle of it was a grind to get through. Seemed like a lot of dress twitching and braid pulling to me. Especially book 10, although the end was awesome getting there was painful (and I took a day off work to read it). But Sanderson brought the series back to vivid spectacular life again.
The middle books grind down because Jordan kept wandering into side plots that would have been better served as standalone books (say, similar to how the Dragonlance books were handled). He knew where the finish line was, just wasn't in a hurry to get there.
Sanderson, on the other hand, was brought in to do the "last" book. (Yes, Jordan had claimed there was only *one* book left). It's pretty easy to see Sanderson picking out the leftover plots, punting them to the curb, and goosing the accelerator to get t
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I'm not sure, book 10 (Crossroads of Twilight) showed the same total lack of plot development that characterized books 6-8. However, book 11 was fairly unusual as the plot moves along at a good pace (instead of just at the beginning and end of the book, a problem most of the series entries had). Book 11 was when I noticed a change, and I assumed at the time that Jordan realized he was in book 11 of a 12-book series and needed to start wrapping things up.
Law takes its course (Score:5, Funny)
Doctor : But then he created eve from adams rib so I had to be there for the surgery and the etc.
Lawer : Haha
Re:Law takes its course (Score:4, Funny)
Lawyer: Ha ha ... who do you think created the chaos ?
There's actually an Emacs command for that.
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Bravo!
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Callentort: Lawyer Which Is Not a Lawyer
What a reason to sue (Score:2)
Re:What a reason to sue (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a clear case of not caring. On one hand the 'pilot' was a blatant attempt at working around their contract, and while I don't think it was as terrible as some think (as basic cable goes), was clearly an afterthought. On the other hand, it's hard to care at all about his wife's position. She was the one who delayed the ebook release for reasons that only cavemen can relate to, and she continues to generally pop up in annoying and unhelpful ways. Generally its' greedy people fighting over the monies, don't give a crap who wins or loses, the rest of us already have lost.
Re:What a reason to sue (Score:5, Informative)
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The editor is just there to try and clean some of that shit up.
A good editor can make it clean, a great one can make it shine, but there's only so much you can do if it's already a pile of shit.
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Regardless of who gets the money, the fact that this group has been squatting on the rights for so long and seems do be interested in doing nothing with them other than suing people means that they need to pass into the hands of someone else. I would support her case for that reason alone.
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The ebook was delayed due to the fact that ebooks were (are?) apparently not handled very well by many bestseller lists. See http://brandonsanderson.com/its-finally-out/ for more information.
(E.g., saying that only cavemen would worry about that reason is quite unfair as being on a bestseller list is quite important in the publishing world...)
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She deliberately delayed the release of the electronic version, because she was trying to rig the Times Best Seller List (apparently, the Times only counted dead-tree book sales at the time, so she didn't release the e-book version to try and force fans to buy dead-tree, so the purchases would help propel it up the list)
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I think you are making a big deal out of nothing. does it suck to wait a little longer? yeah, but you have options, get the hardcover (which is still better than ebooks by a large margin IMO) or wait until the "first run" is over
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Or, you know, pirate it. Which is generally the same response to the movie studies pulling their dick move. Artificially limiting supply creates a black market. I don't know if her move helped the book's position on the Times, but I guarantee it drastically increased the motivation to pirate.
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now im older, there are 1000000 different things to do, i guess i dont mind waiting as much as i did when i was younger
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It's not really about what you or I would think or do - it's what people in aggregate do. If there's an artificial limitation in the legitimate supply of goods, people will find illegitimate ways to acquire them.
Think alcohol during prohibition. Marijuana (in most places) now. Western goods in communist Russia. And yeah, media where rights holder's are playing silly buggers. To appropriate a quote from your reference's prequel, "life finds a way".
If you're trying to manipulate people's behaviour by controll
Re:What a reason to sue (Score:5, Informative)
From Good eReader [goodereader.com]
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After they came out in ebook form I threw out my collection of the hardcovers (the library didn’t want them) and bought them all in ebook format.
why not give them to schools??? or keep them. seems like a waste to throw them away. they will still be readable in 100 years, will the ebook? who knows
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I could continue, but I think you get the point.
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*sniff* (Score:5, Funny)
What a bunch of wool-headed fools! *crosses arms beneath breasts*
Re:*sniff* (Score:5, Funny)
Re:*sniff* (Score:5, Funny)
Responses from other women involved much smoothing of skirts.
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Blood and ashes!
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If you really want to swear, you say blood twice, not once. That's much worse.
Tragic series (Score:2)
I really loved that series for the first N books. Then at some point I concluded the story was being unnaturally dragged out. I eventually stopped reading the series before it was done. Which sucked, because at first it was the best series I'd ever read.
Re:Tragic series (Score:4, Interesting)
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----SPOILER----
Rand gets burned out and is somehow delighted to spend the rest of his life without channeling (unlike any other character). Somehow his "marriage" bonds survive this ordeal (unlike warder bonds or any other type of one power bond). He rides off into the sunset with his harem of
Re: Tragic series (Score:2)
Except he isn't really burned out. He doesn't access the One Power any more but simply weaves the Pattern directly (he wanted the pipe lit, and lo, it was). He's basically God at that point. Or maybe Tom Bombadil...
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FWIW, Sanderson can't write a complete story in one novel either (although some of his shorter fiction is complete in itself). All of his novels are part of a series or have major unresolved issues that call for a sequel.
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Jordans widow (Score:1)
Should be glad that some of us aren't suing the estate for refunds - one book written 14 times...
Now here's the plan. (Score:1)
1) Buy movie rights.
2) Make movie.
3) Air in paid informercial time slot.
4) (TBD)
5) Profit!
Makes you wonder it the whole thing was just a scam to get at her estate all along.
In other news, the production companies are merging under the name "Streisand Corp, LLC".
Streisand Moment (Score:2)
Ok, I never watched the ill conceived TV program which by all accounts was simply a ploy by the production company to retain their rights to the show. Whatever, that's all legal BS that has absolutely nothing to do with the books or potential TV airing itself.
The only reason its being piped up now is because she was publically unsatisfied with the end product. Well guess what? How many people even heard of this poor excuse for a program if it wasn't mentioned in this article? In all accounts, a hell of a lo
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Harriet McDougal's position is not that she was unhappy with the quality. She claims that the rights were held by Universal and not Red Eagle so their production is a rip-off independent of the quality.
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Actually it is that she was not involved with the show, thereby distancing herself from it. You are assuming something. It could very well be both.
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I am not assuming anything. I am relating her stated position, and refuting claims about her unstated position on the basis that no one can know because they are unstated. I do not and cannot say that she does not hold any other position but no one else can say that she does.
Screw those guys (Score:2)
All we need is another Sword of Truth debacle where the tv show is disgustingly horrid and offensive to any fans of the series. Sell the rights to HBO or Netflix, they seem to be the only two companies that are currently producing TV shows while actually caring about the quality and content.
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Sword of Truth started well - I can't fathom why they veered off-story into a bunch of episodic drivel with no overarching plot. Did they only have the rights to the first book?
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It was all in the name of character development, well and to lengthen the show.
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Ah, so screenwriters who thought they were better than the successful author. Figures.
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Screenwriting and fiction writing are two different things, and what works well in one medium may not work well in another. Moreover, screenwriters may be under pressure to lengthen or shorten a series. Writing a novel is a low-budget activity that requires very few people (author, editor, and whoever is responsible for getting the thing sold), while movies and TV shows are much higher-budget activities that require a lot of people, hence business decisions are more likely to override artistic ones.
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Well, they didn't need to "lengthen" it unless they only had the rights to the first book. There were, what, 6 books in the series? Though I guess I can see it if the first book wasn't enough for even 1 season.
Bandersnatch (Score:2)
> her company, Bandersnatch Group
Loooooooooool!
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Frumious as it sounds, it's better than naming your movie production companies "Manetheran" and "Red Eagle" (i.e. straight out of the books), producing an allegedly crappy version of the books, and then suing.
The best part (Score:2)
BALEFIRE! (Score:4, Insightful)
That TV pilot lacked the requisite balefire from the sky in the prologue of The Eye Of The World. That balefire can be put to good use on Red Eagle Entertainment LLC and Manetheren LLC and erasing them, the pilot, and this lawsuit from the Pattern.
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That wasn't balefire. Leaving aside the fact that we've never seen balefire in any form except originating *from* the channeler (or ter'angreal), balefire would have burned the Dragon out of the pattern, never to be reborn.
I could believe he *wanted* to use balefire - depending on how long it had been since the madness took him, it might even have worked to bring back his family - but despite the superficial resemblance (bar of searingly right light burns a hole into the earth where it hits) it just doesn't
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He specifically stated it was not balefire.
Give it to HBO (Score:2)
Nice try (Score:2)
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Hmmmm......did you know a synonym for nerd is bookwork. Nerd just isn't ALL about computers. For those of us who did enjoyed the series. I guess this just means getting to see a series, or movies based upon it, will now be many MANY years before it actually happpens, if ever.
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batshit hell does this constitute as being worthy of being posted to slashdot? What in the ever living fuck is this shit?! Definitely not news for nerds. More like news for crappy lawyers and armchair evangelicals.
For what its worth GET OFF MY LAWN while you're at it.
Um, it's a major news story about one of the 3 or 4 biggest fantasy series of all time. This story has been covered by everybody from Hollywood Reporter to ESPN (through their Grantland site). So, an ESPN site covers a story on a fantasy series, yet you can't figure out why it might make it onto Slashdot a few times?
What has this site become anyway? You do realize that it does more than serve up ads for Dice products?
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The dice are just rolling around in your head...
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You knew that when you hit the site the first day so stop bitching.
Thanks.