I'm not too familiar with US legislation but IF the laptops are indeed Hunter Bidens the argument seems to be that there's a provision in the laptop maintenance guys agreement that in case the laptop doesn't get picked up the ownership of the laptop transfers to the store.
This probably doesn't mean the data in the laptop, videos or fotos etc..? That's separate from the hardware and under IP rights? So if this laptop is actually Bidens, the store owner might face time in the slammer for copyright violations?
Copyright violations rarely end up with prison time. And they certainly won't in this case, for several reasons. First, there's the authorship issue. For example, Hunter may not have taken the picture of him apparently asleep with a crack pipe in his mouth. Whoever did would nominally own the copyright, not Hunter, and Hunter may not want to publicize their identity. Establishing authorship also establishes authenticity, which Hunter and Joe probably don't want either. And discovery is a bitch, so even with stuff he did take, going through each item and describing the conditions under which it was taken in order to establish his authorship is probably not something Hunter wants to pursue.
Second, since copyright exists to protect commercial interest in works, copyright violations are generally punished in proportion to the potential commercial loss they represent. There's no commercial loss here. Even were a case to be brought and won, the outcome would likely be a slap on the wrist with some nominal fine. That's really not going to be worth the Streisand effect it would bring.
Lastly, there may even be an out with fair use exceptions, if only a sampling of these works is publicly released.
And if it is made up, then he opens himself up to some libel/slander charges?
Yes, if these are fakes, they would create a huge defamation liability for the faker.
It doesn't look like they are fakes.