diff --git a/doc/licenses/generate-license-files.sh b/doc/licenses/generate-license-files.sh
index 3148d12d7..6b575af1f 100755
--- a/doc/licenses/generate-license-files.sh
+++ b/doc/licenses/generate-license-files.sh
@@ -45,6 +45,15 @@
 # OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is the directory in which the LICENSE and NOTICE files
 # should be written.
 #
+# Ignoring license errors
+# -----------------------
+#
+# By default, this script will exit with a non-zero exit code if any license
+# errors are encountered, failing the build. If this is undesirable (dependency
+# changes are being tested, a full list of all license errors across all
+# projects is needed, etc.), set the IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS environment variable
+# to "true".
+#
 # Structure of license information
 # --------------------------------
 #
@@ -359,6 +368,12 @@ for EXCLUDED_FILE in README maven-coordinates.txt; do
     rm -f "$OUTPUT_DIR/bundled"/*/"$EXCLUDED_FILE"
 done
 
-# Fail if any errors occurred
-[ "`cat "$HAS_ERRORS"`" != "1" ] && info "Dependency licenses processed successfully."
+# Fail if any errors occured unless explicitly configured to ignore errors with
+# the IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS environment variable
+if [ "`cat "$HAS_ERRORS"`" = "1" ]; then
+    [ "$IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS" = "true" ] || exit 1
+    info "Ignoring above license errors (IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS was set to \"$IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS\")."
+else
+    info "Dependency licenses processed successfully."
+fi
 
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index d67ef17be..c5b68294d 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -45,8 +45,11 @@
         <logback.version>1.2.3</logback.version>
         <slf4j.version>1.7.30</slf4j.version>
 
-        <!-- Build control -->
-        <skipLicenseGeneration>false</skipLicenseGeneration>
+        <!-- Set to "true" to ignore errors that occur during automatic LICENSE
+            file generation (such as non-existent license documentation) as
+            well as errors that occur during the RAT check (such as incorrect
+            or missing license headers). -->
+        <ignoreLicenseErrors>false</ignoreLicenseErrors>
 
     </properties>
 
@@ -99,6 +102,7 @@
                                 <exclude>src/licenses/**/*</exclude>
                                 <exclude>target/**/*</exclude>
                             </excludes>
+                            <skip>${ignoreLicenseErrors}</skip>
                         </configuration>
                     </execution>
                 </executions>
@@ -202,7 +206,9 @@
                                     <argument>${project.build.directory}/runtime-dependencies.txt</argument>
                                     <argument>${project.build.directory}/licenses</argument>
                                 </arguments>
-                                <skip>${skipLicenseGeneration}</skip>
+                                <environmentVariables>
+                                    <IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS>${ignoreLicenseErrors}</IGNORE_LICENSE_ERRORS>
+                                </environmentVariables>
                             </configuration>
                             <goals>
                                 <goal>exec</goal>