Unsurprisingly, e-book piracy is already rampant and poised to worsen

Anti-piracy product maker Attributor posted some new research on its blog relating to the piracy of a fairly new medium, the e-book, as run on such devices as the Kindle and Kobo.

So what are some of the findings? For starters, Attributor found a 50 percent increase in online searches for pirated downloads throughout the past year, with as many as three million daily - yes, daily - Google queries for pirated e-books.

Apple's iPad has fuelled the fire, as the report noted a 20 percent increase in demand for pirated downloads since the tablet computer became available in Spring 2010, with a 54 percent increase in pirated e-book demand since August 2009.

And you don't need to perform any in-depth research to know that these numbers will only rise from here. With many more tablets staged to come to market in 2011, and non-tablet e-readers also still showing signs of strong growth, it's only a matter of time before somebody busts out a Napster for e-books.