diff --git a/pdfminer/pdfinterp.py b/pdfminer/pdfinterp.py
index 2c68846..0c0b5b0 100644
--- a/pdfminer/pdfinterp.py
+++ b/pdfminer/pdfinterp.py
@@ -808,7 +808,8 @@ class PDFPageInterpreter(object):
 ##
 class PDFTextExtractionNotAllowed(PDFInterpreterError): pass
 
-def process_pdf(rsrcmgr, device, fp, pagenos=None, maxpages=0, password=''):
+def process_pdf(rsrcmgr, device, fp, pagenos=None, maxpages=0, password='',
+                check_extractable=True):
     # Create a PDF parser object associated with the file object.
     parser = PDFParser(fp)
     # Create a PDF document object that stores the document structure.
@@ -820,7 +821,7 @@ def process_pdf(rsrcmgr, device, fp, pagenos=None, maxpages=0, password=''):
     # (If no password is set, give an empty string.)
     doc.initialize(password)
     # Check if the document allows text extraction. If not, abort.
-    if not doc.is_extractable:
+    if check_extractable and not doc.is_extractable:
         raise PDFTextExtractionNotAllowed('Text extraction is not allowed: %r' % fp)
     # Create a PDF interpreter object.
     interpreter = PDFPageInterpreter(rsrcmgr, device)
diff --git a/tools/pdf2txt.py b/tools/pdf2txt.py
index 5960f85..1704ffa 100755
--- a/tools/pdf2txt.py
+++ b/tools/pdf2txt.py
@@ -87,7 +87,8 @@ def main(argv):
         return usage()
     for fname in args:
         fp = file(fname, 'rb')
-        process_pdf(rsrcmgr, device, fp, pagenos, maxpages=maxpages, password=password)
+        process_pdf(rsrcmgr, device, fp, pagenos, maxpages=maxpages, password=password,
+                    check_extractable=True)
         fp.close()
     device.close()
     outfp.close()