EV1Servers CEO Robert Marsh is disputing The SCO Group’s claim that the dedicated hosting company paid a fee in excess of $1 million to license SCO’s intellectual property.

“I would discount ANY reports or quotes of a 7 figure cash payment as has been reported,” Marsh wrote in a post on the company’s customer forum. “We did agree to a one time payment, however we did not agree to pay a 7 figure cash payment as reported in the media.”

Blake Stowell, SCO’s director of public relations, told eWeek Monday that EV1Servers “didn’t pay full retail price on each server, but the deal was still worth seven figures all together for SCO.” Similar quotes attributed to SCO appeared in Network World, Information Week and ComputerWorld, and the figure has been repeated widely in online forums discussing the deal.

What’s not clear is whether EV1 and SCO are splitting hairs over definitions – Marsh addressed cash payments, while SCO has talked in terms of “worth” – or there is a larger disconnect between SCO’s public statements and the undisclosed financial terms of the deal.

SCO contends that Linux includes copyrighted code from its own operating system, and is asking Linux users to pay $699 per server for a license to use its intellectual property. Under the terms of the agreement announced Monday, SCO will provide EV1Servers.Net with a site license that allows the use of SCO IP in binary form on all Linux servers managed by EV1Servers.Net in each of its hosting facilities.