diff --git a/hooks/boilerplate.go.txt b/hooks/boilerplate.go.txt
index 837196def64..f3279e2bd0d 100644
--- a/hooks/boilerplate.go.txt
+++ b/hooks/boilerplate.go.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
-Copyright 2014 The Kubernetes Authors All rights reserved.
+Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors All rights reserved.
 
 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
diff --git a/hooks/boilerplate.py b/hooks/boilerplate.py
index 8414577e451..72497f5840b 100755
--- a/hooks/boilerplate.py
+++ b/hooks/boilerplate.py
@@ -47,11 +47,15 @@ def file_passes(filename, extension, ref, regexs):
     # trim our file to the same number of lines as the reference file
     data = data[:len(ref)]
 
-    # Replace all occurances of the regex "2015" with "2014"
+    p = regexs["year"]
+    for d in data:
+        if p.search(d):
+            return False
+
+    # Replace all occurances of the regex "2015|2014" with "YEAR"
     p = regexs["date"]
     for i, d in enumerate(data):
-
-        (data[i], found) = p.subn( '2014', d)
+        (data[i], found) = p.subn('YEAR', d)
         if found != 0:
             break
 
@@ -81,6 +85,8 @@ def main():
     ref = ref_file.read().splitlines()
 
     regexs = {}
+    # Search for "YEAR" which exists in the boilerplate, but shouldn't in the real thing
+    regexs["year"] = re.compile( 'YEAR' )
     # dates can be 2014 or 2015, company holder names can be anything
     regexs["date"] = re.compile( '(2014|2015)' )
     # strip // +build \n\n build constraints
diff --git a/hooks/boilerplate.py.txt b/hooks/boilerplate.py.txt
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
index abc2e0e2b35..2a413f07111
--- a/hooks/boilerplate.py.txt
+++ b/hooks/boilerplate.py.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python
 
-# Copyright 2014 The Kubernetes Authors All rights reserved.
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors All rights reserved.
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 # you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
diff --git a/hooks/boilerplate.sh.txt b/hooks/boilerplate.sh.txt
index 8b60d8dba5e..f592735e31e 100644
--- a/hooks/boilerplate.sh.txt
+++ b/hooks/boilerplate.sh.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
-# Copyright 2014 The Kubernetes Authors All rights reserved.
+# Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors All rights reserved.
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 # you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.