Maybe it's about the willingness to support the content creators, rather than the fear of being prosecuted?

In most cases enrich is a more correct word than support in these cases. Also replace creators for owners. Individuals and small companies I support well (buy every blue ray, CD and t-shirt they sell), large media conglomerates I do not.

Ordinary torrenting is also blocked in China. You need to run your torrent software through a VPN.

Last I was there, Astrill seemed to be the way to go. But the situation evolves.

Some torrent search/index sites and torrent trackers may be blocked, but torrent traffic itself is not blocked in China, at least on the domestic ISPs I've used. I can download a debian image over bittorrent, without VPN, without a problem. In fact, it can be faster than download directly over http, as the traffic has more potential routes.