diff --git a/docs/source/index.rst b/docs/source/index.rst
index c04d52eae..1e103fd04 100644
--- a/docs/source/index.rst
+++ b/docs/source/index.rst
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ The following libraries use ``fsspec`` internally for path and file handling:
    maintainable and modular data science code
 #. `pyxet`_, a Python library for mounting and
    accessing very large datasets from XetHub
-#. `Huggingface🤗 Datasets`_, a popular library to 
+#. `Huggingface🤗 Datasets`_, a popular library to
    load&manipulate data for Deep Learning models
 
 ``fsspec`` filesystems are also supported by:
diff --git a/fsspec/generic.py b/fsspec/generic.py
index 4fb58ac5b..9b5917848 100644
--- a/fsspec/generic.py
+++ b/fsspec/generic.py
@@ -348,6 +348,11 @@ async def _copy(
             raise NotImplementedError
         fs = _resolve_fs(path1[0], self.method)
         fs2 = _resolve_fs(path2[0], self.method)
+
+        # strip all paths here, after resolve...
+        path1 = [fs._strip_protocol(p) for p in path1]
+        path2 = [fs2._strip_protocol(p) for p in path2]
+
         # not expanding paths atm., assume call is from rsync()
         if fs is fs2:
             # pure remote
diff --git a/fsspec/implementations/sftp.py b/fsspec/implementations/sftp.py
index 77f7b370c..5f5904890 100644
--- a/fsspec/implementations/sftp.py
+++ b/fsspec/implementations/sftp.py
@@ -93,6 +93,7 @@ def rmdir(self, path):
         self.ftp.rmdir(path)
 
     def info(self, path):
+        path = self._strip_protocol(path)
         stat = self._decode_stat(self.ftp.stat(path))
         stat["name"] = path
         return stat