diff --git a/src/twitter/compose.py b/src/twitter/compose.py
index dce81432..980ff871 100644
--- a/src/twitter/compose.py
+++ b/src/twitter/compose.py
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ def StripChars(s):
  Else, a unicode string will be returned."""
   if match.group(1).startswith('#'): return chr(int(match.group(1)[1:]))
   replacement = html.entities.entitydefs.get(match.group(1), "&%s;" % match.group(1))
-  return replacement.decode('iso-8859-1')
+  return replacement
  return str(entity_re.sub(matchFunc, s))
 
 chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
diff --git a/src/url_shortener/__main__.py b/src/url_shortener/__main__.py
index 6fb14ca6..c70ae210 100644
--- a/src/url_shortener/__main__.py
+++ b/src/url_shortener/__main__.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ def service_selecter (func):
 
 @service_selecter
 def shorten (url, service=None, **kwargs):
- return service(**kwargs).shorten(url).decode("utf-8")
+ return service(**kwargs).shorten(url)
 
 
 @service_selecter