I have slowly been moving away from "cloud" providers. This announcement has given me the nudge to take file sharing in house. Considering inotify to trigger rsync. I don't run Dropbox on any mobile devices and both my laptops and desktops are Linux although this solution won't be for everyone, I think it should work ok for me? Any thoughts?

No, not buying their music isn't the crime, taking it without paying them for their work is the crime. Music played on radio at least in the UK is paid for via the PRS. They even take an additional cut from factories,shops and other businesses playing the radio in a public area. These businesses have to pay a licensing fee to do so and this goes back to artists. I don't know how it works in other countries.

Musicians and songwriters do lose out. They are on royalties. so for every copy pirated they do not get their tiny little share.

You are not stealing directly by making a copy, but you are depriving the creator by not paying them for their work. I am convinced by what I read on U.S. based sites that you guys think that companies are people and that money is not property. Try taking my hard earned money off me and tell me you aren't stealing. As for musicians making their money from touring? Does that make it right to steal their work? Is that a reasonable argument? As I said In my post I thought my analogy was weak as well. But it was the best I could come up with to try and explain why a site that just provides links can be damaging.

Victimless crime? So the musicians and songwriters don't lose out? The programmer, graphics artists and sound producers for games don't lose out? The actors etc etc.. I am not very good at analogies so forgive me for this poor one. But if I was to collect a database of everyone who sold illegal firearms, drug and kiddy porn and made it free searchable and made my money from advertising. I am not breaking the law as I don't own a gun, don't take drugs and don't molest children, is it safe to say that no one is losing out due to my actions? I know there is a difference between stealing a song or a bit of software and guns and the analogy is a bit of a stretch so I expect to get down voted to oblivion by the pirates.