Mr Pinckney, a French resident, claimed to be the author of twelve songs, which were made into a vinyl disk in the 1970s. Mr Pinckney brought a claim against Austrian company KDG Mediatech AG ("Mediatech"), which he claimed had copied without his authorisation his songs onto a CD. Copies of the CDs were sold by UK companies via websites accessible by Mr Pinckney in France. While the French First Instance Court considered that it had jurisdiction to rule on the matter, this was overturned by the French Court of Appeal on the grounds that the country of residence of the Defendant was Austria and the damage had occurred outside France. Mr Pinckney appealed the decision as he considered that this ruling breached the provisions of Article 5(3) Brussels I Regulation which provides that:
"A person domiciled in a Member State may, in another Member State, be sued … in matters relating to tort, delict or quasi-delict, in the courts of the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur".
The French Supreme Court referred two questions to the CJEU relating to the application of this article in online copyright infringement cases. Firstly, the French Supreme Court asked whether actions could be brought in the courts of any Member State in which the online content had been made accessible or whether the content would need to be "directed" to the internet users of that Member State. Secondly, the French Court asked whether the answer would be different if the infringement resulted from the online sale of a "carrier medium" as opposed to the placing of copyright content online.