I think your issue may be the direct download preference. Since a torrent file is not a hosted copy of pirated content, but merely a call sheet to other computers that are sharing it, in my experience they seem to stay up longer than hosted copies of videos. Not DMCA-immune but maybe more resistant? Private trackers aren’t scraped by Google the way other parts of the internet seem to be, which is how studios and creators track down their content and play DMCA whack-a-mole. I see quite a lot of OnlyFans and Patreon content on my private torrent sites.
I may be misunderstanding what Usenet is or how it works, but this is my anecdotal experience.