U2’s longtime manager Paul McGuinness, a man highly respected in the recording industry, got his speech today at Midem ass backwards.

He called for Internet service providers (ISPs), telecom companies, and hardware manufacturers to help in the fight against music piracy on the Web. That’s good.

But then he said, “I suggest we shift the focus of moral pressure away from the individual P2P file thief and on to the multibillion dollar industries that benefit from these countless tiny crimes.”

No matter what I think of Microsoft, Google, AOL, Yahoo, Comcast, Vodafone, Facebook, and Apple, it doesn’t seem to me that they are at fault for the recording industry’s woes. Yet McGuinness rubs their noses in it, saying “their snouts have been at our trough feeding for free for too long.” (Financial Times account.)

SeeqPod, the novel and handy playable music search engine, is being sued by Warner Music for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), only there’s a twist. SeeqPod isn’t necessarily doing anything wrong: It is not hosting any copyright infringing music.

With SeeqPod music fans can search the Web for artists they are interested in, turning up not only official recordings from bands but EPs, rare tracks, and music recorded by fans at concerts, with varying levels of quality. Users can browse the results, create a playlist, save it, share it, and listen to the tracks right in the browser.

Offering unprotected music MP3s on a download-to-own basis or as part of an ad-supported service is all the rage these days.

The Associated Press reports that — to no one’s surprise — Yahoo Inc. is in early discussions with major labels to offer MP3s free of digital rights management (DRM) for purchase or as a part of an ad-supported streaming music service.

Two record company execs familiar with the talks told the AP that Yahoo hopes to launch the service this year.

During the CBS-Last.fm announcement today, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves said the company was looking into developing “communities around content.” “Community clearly is the future,” he said.

Interesting. What does this mean?

But first, here’s the deal: CBS and Last.fm, the London-based online music streaming site CBS bought for $280 million last May, have built a site where music fans can stream any song they want for free. Well, almost for free. The site is supported by advertising.