diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 8eee58bff43..ecb24419316 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -23,7 +23,8 @@
     "preprocess": "node tasks/preprocess.js",
     "postinstall": "npm run preprocess",
     "bundle": "node tasks/bundle.js",
-    "build": "npm run preprocess && npm run bundle",
+    "header": "node tasks/header.js",
+    "build": "npm run preprocess && npm run bundle && npm run header",
     "cibuild": "node tasks/cibundle.js",
     "watch": "node tasks/watch_plotly.js",
     "lint": "cd src && jshint . || true",
@@ -90,9 +91,10 @@
     "karma-firefox-launcher": "^0.1.6",
     "karma-jasmine": "^0.3.6",
     "open": "0.0.5",
+    "prepend-file": "^1.3.0",
     "prettysize": "0.0.3",
     "through2": "^2.0.0",
-    "watchify": "^3.6.0",
-    "uglify-js": "^2.5.0"
+    "uglify-js": "^2.5.0",
+    "watchify": "^3.6.0"
   }
 }
diff --git a/tasks/header.js b/tasks/header.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..14792f21f8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tasks/header.js
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+var prependFile = require('prepend-file');
+
+var constants = require('./util/constants');
+
+
+// add headers to dist files
+
+var pathsDist = [
+    constants.pathToPlotlyDistMin,
+    constants.pathToPlotlyDist,
+    constants.pathToPlotlyDistWithMeta,
+    constants.pathToPlotlyGeoAssetsDist
+];
+
+function headerLicense(path) {
+    prependFile(path, constants.licenseDist, function(err) {
+        if(err) throw err;
+    });
+}
+
+pathsDist.forEach(headerLicense);
diff --git a/tasks/util/constants.js b/tasks/util/constants.js
index edf7255d5a9..f27502834df 100644
--- a/tasks/util/constants.js
+++ b/tasks/util/constants.js
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 var fs = require('fs');
 var path = require('path');
 
+var pkg = require('../../package.json');
+
 var pathToRoot = path.join(__dirname, '../../');
 var pathToRootParent = path.join(__dirname, '../../../../');
 var pathToSrc = path.join(pathToRoot, 'src/');
@@ -61,5 +63,15 @@ module.exports = {
             beautify: false,
             ascii_only: true
         }
-   }
+    },
+
+    licenseDist: [
+        '/**',
+        '* plotly.js v' + pkg.version,
+        '* Copyright 2012-2015, Plotly, Inc.',
+        '* All rights reserved.',
+        '* Licensed under the MIT license',
+        '*/',
+        ''
+    ].join('\n')
 };