diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 7333545d3..0db887293 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@
 * Fix an issue that was causing mpdupdate to run twice for every album.
 * Fix a bug that caused release dates/years not to be fetched.
 * Fix a crasher when setting MBIDs on MP3s file metadata.
+* Fix a "broken pipe" error when piping beets' standard output.
 * A better error message is given when the database file is unopenable.
 
 1.0b8
diff --git a/beets/ui/__init__.py b/beets/ui/__init__.py
index 1f5b04c46..9ee621c4b 100644
--- a/beets/ui/__init__.py
+++ b/beets/ui/__init__.py
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ import sys
 from difflib import SequenceMatcher
 import logging
 import sqlite3
+import errno
 
 from beets import library
 from beets import plugins
@@ -607,3 +608,9 @@ def main(args=None, configfh=None):
     except UserError, exc:
         message = exc.args[0] if exc.args else None
         subcommand.parser.error(message)
+    except IOError, exc:
+        if exc.errno == errno.EPIPE:
+            # "Broken pipe". End silently.
+            pass
+        else:
+            raise