Getty Images is spending millions to confront what its CEO Craig Peters calls a “world of rhetoric” through its lawsuit against Stability AI.

In an interview, Peters said that Stability AI—the UK-based startup behind the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion—and other AI labs are using copyright-protected material without permission to train their AI models for commercial profit, according to CNBC.

He argued that these companies are using copyrighted content to train advanced AI models, all under the pretense of innovation—only to deploy those same tools in commercial markets, directly competing with the original creators.

“That’s disruption under the notion of ‘move fast and break things,’ and we believe that’s unfair competition,” Peters added. “We’re not against competition. There’s constant new competition coming in all the time from new technologies or just new companies. But that’s just unfair competition, that’s theft.”

Peters stated that the AI industry claims requiring developers to pay for access to creative works would “kill innovation.”

“We’re battling a world of rhetoric,” he said.

Getty Images has filed lawsuits against Stability AI in both the U.K. and U.S., alleging that the company unlawfully copied 12 million images without permission or payment, using them to advance its commercial goals at the expense of content creators.

Stability AI disputes the allegations, acknowledging that some Getty-sourced images were used to train its Stable Diffusion model but denying any legal liability related to Getty’s claims.

Stability AI declined to comment on the matter when approached.

However, the company has previously defended its use of copyrighted material by invoking the “fair use” doctrine, which allows limited use of such content in specific cases—particularly when the use is considered “transformative,” meaning it adds new expression, purpose, or meaning to the original work.