Should I remove content

I recently came across an interesting story on a blog. When I returned to the page , there was a message that stated that the page was getting so much traffic that it had to be taken down and that anyone that wanted to mirror the contentshould contact them.

After reaching the owner , he replied that I could use the content, sent me a link to a zip file containing the html and images, and I decided I needed to resize the images and split the content into multiple pages. He also stated that when I post the story, to send the link and he would link to the page.

I sent another message to the owner, stating the changes I planned to make and was told that I could do anything I needed to do to post the content. It took me about a day to get it up.

I sent the owner the link and when he didnt reply I rechecked the site and the site now redirected to someone else. After a few days the owner replied to messages I sent asking if he was going to still link to me and said that someone had paid him for "exclusive" rights to the content.

My question is, should I remove the content? I think the chances that someone would take this to court are unlikely and that it was probably not a written deal nor the amount that great and I was given permission in the first place but what do you think is the right thng to do?

On my part, I spent several hours making this, changed other pages to link to the page including sitemaps to google.

 

Don't worry about it, you did everything the right way. If you kept the original correspondence complete with date attached you don't have a problem.