diff --git a/LICENSE.md b/LICENSE.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f578772
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+University of Illinois/NCSA
+Open Source License
+
+Copyright (c) 2015, Les De Ridder
+All rights reserved.
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
+this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal with
+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:
+
+* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
+  this list of conditions and the following disclaimers.
+
+* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
+  this list of conditions and the following disclaimers in the
+  documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
+
+* Neither the name of pastethingy nor the names of its contributors may be used
+  to endorse or promote products derived from this Software without specific
+  prior written permission.
+
+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
+CONTRIBUTORS 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 WITH THE
+SOFTWARE.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dbd4f32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# pastethingy 
+A simple paste web application made with [Laravel 5.2](https://laravel.com) and [Pygments](http://pygments.org) via [Pygmentize](https://github.com/dedalozzo/pygmentize).
+
+## Features
+  * Paste expiry 
+  * Future pastes
+  * Code highlighting
+  * Useful output formats (e.g. HTML, raw, terminal, PNG)
+  * Works without JS (optional JS for entering tab characters with the tab key) 
+  * Usable via curl (e.g. `echo test | curl pastethingy.my.domain/paste -F 'content=<-'`)
+  * No bloat (no user accounts, no deletion URLs, no encryption, etc.)
+  * No CSS framework
+  * JSON API
+
+## JSON API
+TODO: Document the JSON API.
+
+## License
+pastethingy is available under the University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License.
+The full license can be found in the [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md) file.