diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index fc5e2d1..1af4773 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -19,24 +19,31 @@ converted to a raw byte slice.
  declaration with name 'main' and one function named 'gophercolor_png'.
  It looks like this:
 
-     func gophercolor_png() ([]byte, error) {
+     // gophercolor_png returns the decompressed binary data.
+     // It panics if an error occurred.
+     func gophercolor_png() []byte {
 	      gz, err := gzip.NewReader(bytes.NewBuffer([]byte{
               ...
           }))
           
           if err != nil {
-              return nil, err
+              panic("Decompression failed: " + err.Error())
           }
 
           var b bytes.Buffer
           io.Copy(&b, gz)
           gz.Close()
           
-          return b.Bytes(), nil
+          return b.Bytes()
      }
 
  You can now simply include the new .go file in your program and call
- gophercolor_png() to get the uncompressed image data.
+ gophercolor_png() to get the uncompressed image data. The function panics
+ if something went wrong during decompression. This makes any faults appearant
+ during initialization of your program, so it can quickly be fixed. Additionally,
+ this approach allows us to assign the decompressed file data to global
+ variables where necessary.
+
  See the testdata directory for example input and output.
 
  Aternatively, you can pipe the input file data into stdin. bindata will then
diff --git a/bindata.go b/bindata.go
index d13145e..e04c48e 100644
--- a/bindata.go
+++ b/bindata.go
@@ -21,8 +21,10 @@ import (
 	"io"
 )
 
-func %s() ([]byte, error) {
-	gz, err := gzip.NewReader(bytes.NewBuffer([]byte{`, pkgname, funcname)
+// %s returns the decompressed binary data.
+// It panics if an error occurred.
+func %s() []byte {
+	gz, err := gzip.NewReader(bytes.NewBuffer([]byte{`, pkgname, funcname, funcname)
 
 	gz := gzip.NewWriter(&GoWriter{Writer: output})
 	io.Copy(gz, input)
@@ -32,14 +34,14 @@ func %s() ([]byte, error) {
 	}))
 
 	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
+		panic("Decompression failed: " + err.Error())
 	}
 
 	var b bytes.Buffer
 	io.Copy(&b, gz)
 	gz.Close()
 
-	return b.Bytes(), nil
+	return b.Bytes()
 }`)
 	return
 }
diff --git a/testdata/gophercolor.png b/testdata/gophercolor.png
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
diff --git a/testdata/gophercolor.png.go b/testdata/gophercolor.png.go
index 74b4956..365d19d 100644
--- a/testdata/gophercolor.png.go
+++ b/testdata/gophercolor.png.go
@@ -6,7 +6,9 @@ import (
 	"io"
 )
 
-func gophercolor_png() ([]byte, error) {
+// gophercolor_png returns the decompressed binary data.
+// It panics if an error occurred.
+func gophercolor_png() []byte {
 	gz, err := gzip.NewReader(bytes.NewBuffer([]byte{
 0x1f,0x8b,0x08,0x00,0x00,0x09,0x6e,0x88,0x00,0xff,0x34,0x9b,
 0x65,0x50,0x1b,0x5f,0x17,0xc6,0x43,0x69,0x8b,0xbb,0xbb,0xbb,
@@ -1837,12 +1839,12 @@ func gophercolor_png() ([]byte, error) {
 	}))
 
 	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
+		panic("Decompression failed: " + err.Error())
 	}
 
 	var b bytes.Buffer
 	io.Copy(&b, gz)
 	gz.Close()
 
-	return b.Bytes(), nil
+	return b.Bytes()
 }
\ No newline at end of file