diff --git a/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py b/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py
index d7aa951ff..a57d7e606 100755
--- a/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py
@@ -256,6 +256,7 @@ class YoutubeDL(object):
                        If it returns None, the video is downloaded.
                        match_filter_func in utils.py is one example for this.
     no_color:          Do not emit color codes in output.
+    extra_http_headers: Extra http headers to include with every request.
 
     The following options determine which downloader is picked:
     external_downloader: Executable of the external downloader to call.
diff --git a/youtube_dl/utils.py b/youtube_dl/utils.py
index 8e53962c9..f8ff0e0f2 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/utils.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/utils.py
@@ -780,6 +780,11 @@ class YoutubeDLHandler(compat_urllib_request.HTTPHandler):
         if url != url_escaped:
             req = update_Request(req, url=url_escaped)
 
+        if 'extra_http_headers' in self._params:
+            for h, v in self._params['extra_http_headers'].items():
+                if h.capitalize() not in req.headers:
+                    req.add_header(h, v)
+
         for h, v in std_headers.items():
             # Capitalize is needed because of Python bug 2275: http://bugs.python.org/issue2275
             # The dict keys are capitalized because of this bug by urllib