Unfortunately for Caridi, his tendency for screener-sharing resulted in him crossing paths with a piracy legend. For at least three years in the early Noughties, Caridi gave his screeners to a friend named Russell Sprague, who he had met when Sprague came to fix his VCR. Unknown to Caridi, Sprague was also a notorious movie pirate, whose copyright-be-damned criminal career began in 1975.

According to Sprague’s wife Roberta, her husband got off on the thrill of distributing bootleg copies of major movies long before they actually hit cinemas, telling the Los Angeles Times that it made him feel “important and popular.”

Having lost track of Sprague during the Eighties, police once again had him in their sights once pirated copies of the Tom Cruise vehicle The Last Samurai hit the internet in 2003 – a screener watermarked with Carmine Caridi’s name. Similar screeners for films including Big Fish, Something’s Gotta Give and Mystic River also turned up bearing the same watermark.

After visiting Caridi and seizing his lengthy collection of screeners, police reportedly offered him immunity in exchange for Sprague’s name. Caridi gave up his friend, police tracking Sprague down to his Illinois home, where he had been creating digital copies of Caridi’s VHS screeners and uploading them online. He eventually pleaded guilty to his crimes.

Before trial began, however, Sprague was allowed to return home to live with his family – until his wife shopped him to the police after she caught him smoking marijuana with their 17-year-old son. She also claimed he was still distributing pirate DVDs. Holed up in a jail cell and awaiting trial, Sprague died of an apparent heart attack.