diff --git a/test/test_utils.py b/test/test_utils.py
index b8fc13aefc..e2f226bf1d 100644
--- a/test/test_utils.py
+++ b/test/test_utils.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 from youtube_dl.utils import unescapeHTML
 from youtube_dl.utils import orderedSet
 
-if sys.version < (3,0):
+if sys.version_info < (3,0):
 	_compat_str = lambda b: b.decode('unicode-escape')
 else:
 	_compat_str = lambda s: s
diff --git a/youtube_dl/FileDownloader.py b/youtube_dl/FileDownloader.py
index 2b76a3b09b..6ddbfc469e 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/FileDownloader.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/FileDownloader.py
@@ -380,17 +380,17 @@ def process_info(self, info_dict):
 
 		# Forced printings
 		if self.params.get('forcetitle', False):
-			print(info_dict['title'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+			compat_print(info_dict['title'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 		if self.params.get('forceurl', False):
-			print(info_dict['url'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+			compat_print(info_dict['url'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 		if self.params.get('forcethumbnail', False) and 'thumbnail' in info_dict:
-			print(info_dict['thumbnail'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+			compat_print(info_dict['thumbnail'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 		if self.params.get('forcedescription', False) and 'description' in info_dict:
-			print(info_dict['description'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+			compat_print(info_dict['description'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 		if self.params.get('forcefilename', False) and filename is not None:
-			print(filename.encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+			compat_print(filename.encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 		if self.params.get('forceformat', False):
-			print(info_dict['format'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+			compat_print(info_dict['format'].encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
 
 		# Do nothing else if in simulate mode
 		if self.params.get('simulate', False):
diff --git a/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py b/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py
index 5c5430ad5e..94803aa95b 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py
@@ -339,7 +339,7 @@ def _real_extract(self, url):
 				return
 		if 'token' not in video_info:
 			if 'reason' in video_info:
-				self._downloader.trouble(u'ERROR: YouTube said: %s' % video_info['reason'][0].decode('utf-8'))
+				self._downloader.trouble(u'ERROR: YouTube said: %s' % video_info['reason'][0])
 			else:
 				self._downloader.trouble(u'ERROR: "token" parameter not in video info for unknown reason')
 			return
diff --git a/youtube_dl/utils.py b/youtube_dl/utils.py
index 3fcb0927fa..9db7b9d9dc 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/utils.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/utils.py
@@ -61,7 +61,6 @@
 except NameError:
 	compat_chr = chr
 
-
 std_headers = {
 	'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0',
 	'Accept-Charset': 'ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7',
@@ -83,6 +82,12 @@ def preferredencoding():
 
 	return pref
 
+if sys.version_info < (3,0):
+	def compat_print(s):
+		print(s.encode(preferredencoding(), 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
+else:
+	def compat_print(s):
+		print(s)
 
 def htmlentity_transform(matchobj):
 	"""Transforms an HTML entity to a character.