I'm too tired to read all of the posts so I will just recommend some. Sorry if they have already been said.
For music and nothing else I would recommend
Soulseek......Great souce for music and non mainstream bands
Aries...........GOod for mainstream bands but not many underground bands.
For games, apps, movies etc
DC++..........over 5,000 hubs you can connect to. Half of the hubs have over over 100 terabytes. The hub with the most users has 800 terabytes shared. VERY VERY good source
any opennap server (just google)
I don't recommend bit torrent for illegal use, since alot of sites are being investigated. And becuase I have had a letter from the MPAA about sharing a movie over bit torrent. So since you can't disable sharing, I just stay away from it. You can get anything on usenet that is on bit torrent.
If you have cable internet, you should check out if your ISP allows you to access usenet for free. I know cox and comcast does.
If you find out you can access usenet for free, use the program "Grabit" instead of outlook express, which is what cox told me to use.