Google Books is swindling my authors and publishing house

An author who I'm working with contacted me during the week:

Not sure if this is your concern - I've just been shown a Google books' link to a book called Ethical Practice for Health Professionals by Heather Freegard - and it's actually the first edition of our textbook.

It is my concern. But not because the link incorrectly leads to the first edition of Jane Grellier and Veronica Goerkes' textbook rather than the Freegard book. I'm concerned because the entire first edition of my authors' textbook is available on Google Books. This first edition is still in print and in copyright.

Google states:

If we've determined that a book is out of copyright, or the publisher or rightsholder has given us permission, you'll be able to page through the entire book from start to finish, as many times as you like.

Ahem! How did Google determine that this book was out of copyright? And no permission was given, thank you very much!

I'm working on the second edition currently and it will be published at the end of the year. But despite this the first edition will continue to be in copyright - it is highly unlikely that permission to have the entire first-edition text online will be given.

Suffice it to say, I've written to Google demanding that they take this unauthorised version of the book down from their website and the senior management of my publishing house is following up the issue further. I wrote four days ago but the material is still available for viewing.

Last year Google agreed to pay US$125 million to authors and publishers to settle two three-year old lawsuits over its scanning of out-of-print but copyright-protected books and placing them online. As a consequence, out-of-print but copyright-protected books now have charges - although it is up to publishers to discover that their books have been placed online and ask for purchase options to be made.

Although the court cases' findings are US-based and do not hold internationally, negotiations are underway between Google Books and Australian publishers. The publishing house I'm employed at has agreed to work with Google Books (with a can't beat 'em, join 'em attitude) but the details are still being finalised and nothing definitive has been decided on.

I've checked out books I've worked on over the last three years and happily none appear in their entirety on Google Books. Interestingly many of the books with higher plate costs I've worked on are not listed which suggests that Google Books' decisions are arbitrary and not even based on market share.

I didn't work on Jane and Veronicas' first edition but I'm very annoyed for them. This is their work displayed free of charge, without royalties being paid. I'm also annoyed for my publishing house because displaying electronic versions of books that are still in print and in copyright is a potential loss of profit - and I'm annoyed for my own sake because loss of profit affects my employer's ability to keep me employed.