There are sites that don't provide direct links to .torrent files. Currently there is no way to download contents of such torrents with git annex, it simply uses web remote instead of bittorrent. Something like --force-torrent option could help here.
I'd prefer torrent:url; this is consistent with quvi:url for forcing quvi be used.
git-annex addurl --no-rawwill prevent it from using the web remote in these cases.But, it does not force treating a given url as a torrent. I suppose the
torrent:urlidea still has merit.