diff --git a/scrapy/responsetypes.py b/scrapy/responsetypes.py
index 13f9df52a..1bf21ca81 100644
--- a/scrapy/responsetypes.py
+++ b/scrapy/responsetypes.py
@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ _CONTENT_ENCODING_MIME_TYPES = {
     'gzip': b'application/gzip',
 }
 _MIME_TYPES = MimeTypes()
-_MIME_TYPES.readfp(StringIO(get_data('scrapy', 'mime.types').decode()))
+_scrapy_mime_data = get_data('scrapy', 'mime.types') or b''
+_MIME_TYPES.readfp(StringIO(_scrapy_mime_data.decode()))
 
 
 def _is_other_text_mime_type(mime_type):
diff --git a/tests/test_responsetypes.py b/tests/test_responsetypes.py
index ebfe78f1e..075b0ad22 100644
--- a/tests/test_responsetypes.py
+++ b/tests/test_responsetypes.py
@@ -174,8 +174,8 @@ class ResponseTypesTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_custom_mime_types_loaded(self):
         """Check that mime.types files shipped with Scrapy are loaded."""
         self.assertEqual(
-          _MIME_TYPES.guess_type('x.scrapytest')[0],
-          'x-scrapy/test',
+            _MIME_TYPES.guess_type('x.scrapytest')[0],
+            'x-scrapy/test',
         )