I just received an email from iTunes telling me that the new iTunes Plus DRM free version of music from EMI is available in Canada. The email concludes with the sentence that, “Even better yet, you can also upgrade existing EMI songs in your iTunes collection for just $.40 per song.”

$.40 per song? Where’d that come from? $.40 per song is a 33% premium over the the $.30 per song that upgrades cost U.S. iTunes subscribers. That’s a big, big difference.

How can this be justified? Not on the basis of the exchange rate. When I checked the Bank of Canada currency converter just now, it showed that $.30 U.S. is worth $.32 Canadian. So, that means that either Apple or EMI is pocketing a windfall $.08 for every iTunes track upgraded to the DRM free iTUnes Plus version.

I applauded Steve Jobs’ announcement that iTunes would take some initial steps forward into the world of DRM free music. That’s a good thing.

But charging one person an extra $.08 on exactly the same purchase another gets for $.08 less? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Seems like a marketing faux pas to me. I wonder if it will bounce back on either Apple or EMI.

What do you think?