Yeah, denials don't mean anything. WDAS was claiming they wouldn't make a sequel to Frozen a week before they announced a sequel to Frozen.
Yeah. As an example, here's a different sequence of events...
Jan 14, 2015:
Latino Review says that a Sony/Marvel deal is completed and will share the rights to Spider-Man
Later Jan 14, 2015:
Sony denies the rumors, saying they have "no validity whatsoever"
Feb 9, 2015:
Marvel and Sony announced a partnership for sharing Spider-Man rights.
Also, when the Daredevil rights were expiring for Fox, Fox asked for an extension from Marvel. Marvel said they would grant an extension in return for the movie rights for Galactus and the Silver Surfer (to use in the MCU). Fox turned them down. This was merely for an extension of rights (which, ironically, ended up going back to Marvel as Fox did not make a new movie in time).
So, people out there would have us believe that Marvel signed off on Fox producing not one but two X-Men shows and in return did not get the Fantastic Four rights (or at least the use of characters they previously wanted for the MCU)? It's baloney. It's almost certain that the FF rights are going back to Marvel (maybe technically Fox still has the rights
right now as the deal is not in effect yet so the denial of the FF rights reverting is true at this time); if they are not going back, it's only because Marvel/Disney has gotten something even more valuable in exchange for allowing the TV deal to go through.