I think the point is that he did, and that we all do, when we train our meat neural networks (on copyrighted material) in a way that makes us better at providing a commercial service (our job).

If a human has a right to view and learn from a copyrighted image on the internet, why shouldn't an AI?

Yes, this is exactly my point. And I’d go even one step further: creating real artificial intelligence cannot be possible without learning from the real world - which means learning also from copyrighted material. So a law that prevents this (even by just requiring to pay a minuscule fee) would effectively ensure that such a technology will be developed in a country with different laws.