A VPN isn't enough to stay safe, not if you're operating at the level of scene release groups. It's the most illegal thing that you can do in the pirate world. It's several years of jail if you get busted. If a kid get caught seeding a torrent, the punishment won't be that harsh, but actually providing the whole world with the most fresh stuff is something different.
If you care about torrents it's fine, but a lot of people don't care about it and have other methods of leeching. You can take a look at FXP (for starters).
But there is something important to understand: we're not talking about torrents here. Torrenting is one of the unsafest ways to actually pirate stuff but for most people it's the easiest.
The Scene has rules on how to release things. If one of these rules are broken, the release will get nuked and the group can release a fix/proper release. Just take a look at some of the reasons on the link I provided :)
The circle jerk stuff get's embedded automatically because of the wiki articles (I can't see that on the web version). Read them and you'll understand more.
The scene is not interested in torrenting. Torrent is just the most insecure way to leech whatever you want. Maybe "Normal people" should find alternatives.
Release groups are the first to release anything. Whatever you leech out there was firstly release by a release group.
I also like it, it was a good idea