TERRE HAUTE, IN — Seeking to counter rumors that it is trying to prevent adult entertainment companies from using the high definition Blu-ray format, Sony issued a statement Tuesday asserting that the company exerts no control over the licensing of Blu-ray, and that the company has no interest in telling licensees what to do with their licenses.“There’s no prohibition against adult content,” said Sony Corp. of America spokesperson Lisa Gephardt, according to InformationWeek.com. “We don’t tell people how they can use the licenses they get from the Blu-ray Disc Association.”

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) also issued a statement, in which it is described as “an open organization that welcomes the participation of all companies interested in using and supporting the format, including those that represent the full spectrum of genres in the content industry.”

Accurately or otherwise, the adult industry is seen as a major driving force behind technologies developed for entertainment purposes and the industry’s early adoption of the VHS format has been widely cited as contributing to the downfall of the rival Betamax format, another technology developed by Sony.

When it was noted that Sony’s subsidiaries that offer replication services will not replicate adult Blu-ray titles, the interpretation offered far and wide was that Sony had instituted a “ban” on adult Blu-ray titles. The purported ban in turn gave rise to speculation that adult content’s role in the next-gen DVD format war could be similar to the adult industry’s perceived effect on the VHS vs. Betamax format war.

Gephardt accurately noted that Sony’s policy of refusing to handle adult content replication is nothing new for the giant consumer electronics company.

“Sony disc manufacturing will not manufacture adult titles,” Gephardt said Tuesday. “We have never done it, and we have no plans to.”

Gephardt added that the policy was Sony’s and Sony’s alone, and would not affect any other companies involved in Blu-ray replication.