Aren’t people doing jail time for this now?
To the best of my knowledge, not for posting or D/L on newsgroups.
The pirates facing criminal charges are generally topsite operators, making high-dollar 0-day stuff available through private servers. There may have also been some cases of people getting busted for making pre-release movies available through P2P.
The focus is generally on distributors, not leechers. Makes sense, since leechers won’t have anything to leech without the distributors. I don’t even think the RIAA has gone after people without their making product available via P2P. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, they’re assholes.
Where else am I going to get good porn?