diff --git a/youtube_dl/utils.py b/youtube_dl/utils.py
index 16b4324a4..fc64a4186 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/utils.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/utils.py
@@ -467,6 +467,10 @@ def encodeFilename(s, for_subprocess=False):
     if not for_subprocess and sys.platform == 'win32' and sys.getwindowsversion()[0] >= 5:
         return s
 
+    # Jython assumes filenames are Unicode strings though reported as Python 2.x compatible
+    if sys.platform.startswith('java'):
+        return s
+
     return s.encode(get_subprocess_encoding(), 'ignore')