diff --git a/scripts/update_3rdparty.py b/scripts/update_3rdparty.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..166afc2f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/update_3rdparty.py
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+#!/usr/bin/python
+
+"""Update 3rd-party files (currently only ez_setup.py)."""
+
+from urllib.request import urlretrieve
+
+urlretrieve('https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/raw/bootstrap/ez_setup.py',
+            'scripts/ez_setup.py')