diff --git a/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode.go b/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode.go
index ffe9d77b7a..f2ec9cb672 100644
--- a/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode.go
+++ b/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode.go
@@ -55,6 +55,11 @@ import (
 // If no more serious errors are encountered, Unmarshal returns
 // an UnmarshalTypeError describing the earliest such error.
 //
+// When unmarshaling quoted strings, invalid UTF-8 or
+// invalid UTF-16 surrogate pairs are not treated as an error.
+// Instead, they are replaced by the Unicode replacement
+// character U+FFFD.
+//
 func Unmarshal(data []byte, v interface{}) error {
 	// Check for well-formedness.
 	// Avoids filling out half a data structure
diff --git a/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode_test.go b/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode_test.go
index 524a9989fe..1ce26f8fb3 100644
--- a/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode_test.go
+++ b/src/pkg/encoding/json/decode_test.go
@@ -330,6 +330,43 @@ var unmarshalTests = []unmarshalTest{
 		ptr: new(S10),
 		out: S10{S13: S13{S8: S8{S9: S9{Y: 2}}}},
 	},
+
+	// invalid UTF-8 is coerced to valid UTF-8.
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\xffworld\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffdworld",
+	},
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\xc2\xc2world\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffd\ufffdworld",
+	},
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\xc2\xffworld\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffd\ufffdworld",
+	},
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\\ud800world\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffdworld",
+	},
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\\ud800\\ud800world\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffd\ufffdworld",
+	},
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\\ud800\\ud800world\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffd\ufffdworld",
+	},
+	{
+		in:  "\"hello\xed\xa0\x80\xed\xb0\x80world\"",
+		ptr: new(string),
+		out: "hello\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffdworld",
+	},
 }
 
 func TestMarshal(t *testing.T) {