Saying he hoped to quell a rash of speculation to the contrary, Matrix Content chief Norman Bentley maintains his company provided no list of affiliate names to Acacia Media Technologies, and that he had "no idea" where the speculation began in the first place.
Bentley spoke to AVN.com the morning after at least one adult Webmaster message board posted a thread discussing whether a joint statement on the speculation from Matrix and Acacia would be forthcoming the evening of October 29. Bentley said no such statement had been offered.
"I don't know where that came from," he said. "We don't talk to Acacia. And we're not very happy with what's going on, with the (speculation), with the situation at hand. We're getting told we're giving the list away and I'll repeat it on the record, we did not do it."
Bentley repeated what he told AVN.com earlier in October: that Matrix would not have signed a licensing agreement involving Acacia's controversial streaming media patent claims if Acacia had asked for or insisted upon Matrix providing Acacia with a list of its affiliate Webmasters or Websites.
Acacia had suggested as far back as July that they would consider holding liable affiliates or anyone linking to Websites using streaming media that it claimed was covered by the patents. Acacia senior vice president Robert Berman was unavailable for comment before this story went to press
Bentley said he has received numerous calls since the speculation began, but that most of them were expressions of support for him. "I've gotten more calls from people saying things are fucked up and we would never do such a thing and they've got our back," he said. "What's really unfortunate is, you've heard the term divide and conquer? Instead of pointing fingers, they should focus their energy on things that will help people."
In a related development, Adult Entertainment Broadcasting Network, one of the Internet companies Acacia is pressing to license the streaming media patent claims, has announced they were joining the Internet Media Protective Association's legal defense against the Newport Beach, California firm.
"We would like to assure the adult community," said AEBN president Scott Coffman, "that we are resisting Acacia's patent claims. We feel that challenging Acacia's claims are in the best interest of the industry."
AEBN stressed, however, that only in a court of law could their patent claims be proven valid or invalid.
