LAION itself does not store the images. Therefore they are claiming they had no part in any AI use/misuse. They also committed no copyright infringement in what they did (which was to download an image, verify that it was in fact an image, and add it to their list).
However, since LAION had to retain a lawyer to deal with this (incorrect) request, they now want to be paid for that lawyers time - which seems reasonable.
Other parties used the LAION list to train AI models - and those parties are who the photographer should have made claims against in the first place.
LAION is a list of links to images.
LAION itself does not store the images. Therefore they are claiming they had no part in any AI use/misuse. They also committed no copyright infringement in what they did (which was to download an image, verify that it was in fact an image, and add it to their list).
However, since LAION had to retain a lawyer to deal with this (incorrect) request, they now want to be paid for that lawyers time - which seems reasonable.
Other parties used the LAION list to train AI models - and those parties are who the photographer should have made claims against in the first place.