diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e6139848
--- /dev/null
+++ b/COPYING
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+Copyright (c) 2016 The Zcash Core developers
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
+of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
+in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
+to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
+furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
+all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
+IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
+AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
+OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
+THE SOFTWARE.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 7e4db34b..cb33b7fa 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,11 @@
 zips
 ====
 
-Improvement proposals for the [Zcash cryptocurrency](https://z.cash/).
+Specifications and Zcash Improvement Proposals for the
+[Zcash cryptocurrency](https://z.cash/).
+
+License
+-------
+
+The contents of this repository are released under the terms of the MIT license.
+See [COPYING](COPYING) for more information or see http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.