Wow!

The retailer (again) has stopped taking pre-orders of certain Hachette books, and slowed down the delivery of others. But it has also explained itself for the first time on Readers United, a site that it owns. “Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book,” it said. Amazon’s books team asked readers to email the Hachette CEO, cc-ing them, saying canned lines like:

We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.

The collusion refers to the fact its great rival, Apple, and five publishers were convicted of colluding to set prices on e-books. The publishers—including Hachette—all settled in that case with the US government, and Hachette is the first since then to negotiate new terms with Amazon. The last time a book publisher lengthily opposed Amazon’s terms, it removed the Buy button from its pages and sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission accusing it of illegal behavior.

Don’t bet on the same thing happening to Disney. But for now, Captain America—who has beaten the Red Skull and seen off an alien invasion with the Avengers—is struggling to defeat his greatest foe yet, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.