[howyoudoin]

Edit: Redundant post. fjtorres has already made the point.

If I were a publishing house interested in benefiting myself by screwing over both the authors and reader, one technique would be to sell the ebook to the retailer—thus making it legal to pay the authors the lesser fee for a sale—and then have the retailer lease the ebook to the reader, thus also screwing over the reader who does not own the ebook. This makes it perfectly legal on both ends.
I wouldn't be surprised if this were exactly what's happening. Middle men and intermediary companies are an easy and time tested method to achieve the fullest benefits possible.