Problems in localized site with path prefixes [Includes fix]

I am experiencing problems with skype_status module in a multi-language site that uses path prefixes to change language.
The problem is at line 79 of skype_status.module:

$path = url(drupal_get_path('module', 'skype_status') . '/images/' . $buttonstyle . '/'. $status['num'] . '.png');

The url() function returns the prefixed url: /en/sites/all/modules/skype_status/images/bigclassic/1.png that, of course, points to a "non-existent file".
Also, I'm pretty sure it would give the same problem while using on a Drupal site with clean urls off, since it would return something like ?q=sites/all/.../1.png.

The way I used to fix it, is replace that line with the following:

$path = base_path() . drupal_get_path('module', 'skype_status') . '/images/' . $buttonstyle . '/'. $status['num'] . '.png';

That should be the right way to do that, as you can see in the theme_image() function..