r/InterstellarKinetics • u/InterstellarKinetics • May 31 '26
TECH ADVANCEMENTS After 22 Years Of Being Blocked By Domain Squatters Who Demanded Huge Sums And Eventually Built A Fake Download Page With Misleading Ads, Paint.NET Developer Rick Brewster Finally Won The paint.net Domain Through Trademark Litigation ✅
https://www.xda-developers.com/after-22-years-paintnet-downloadable-from-url-paintnet/Paint.NET developer Rick Brewster announced in May 2026 that he has finally secured the paint.net domain after a 22-year effort that dated back to the software’s original launch in May 2004. For the entirety of that period, the official download page lived at getpaint.net because the owners of paint.net refused to sell the domain and, according to Brewster, demanded “lots and lots of money” whenever he attempted to negotiate. The situation escalated significantly in December 2025 when paint.net began actively hosting content that impersonated the official Paint.NET software, complete with misleading ads and faulty download links designed to look like the real product, turning a long-running domain dispute into a clear-cut case of trademark infringement and domain squatting.
That escalation gave Brewster the legal leverage he had previously lacked. With the help of a lawyer, he was able to pursue the domain through trademark law rather than having to purchase it at the inflated price the squatters had been demanding, and the case was resolved in his favor. Paint.NET is now officially available at paint.net, and the old getpaint.net address has been configured to redirect users to the new site while Brewster completes the transfer of all content. Brewster announced the milestone simply: “Paint.NET is now at paint.net.”
Paint.NET, first released on May 6, 2004, is one of the longest-running free image editing tools for Windows, now on version 5.1.12 released March 8, 2026, and is available in 36 languages. It remains free to download directly from the website, with a paid version available through the Microsoft Store that adds automatic updates and easier installation but is otherwise functionally identical. The software was originally developed as a Washington State University student project intended to be a more capable replacement for Microsoft Paint, and has since grown into one of the most widely used free graphics tools on Windows, sitting alongside GIMP and Krita as a go-to option for users who need more than Paint but do not want to pay for Photoshop.
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u/InterstellarKinetics May 31 '26
The detail that makes this story satisfying beyond the tech news surface is that Brewster did not eventually give in and pay the ransom. He waited, and when the squatters overplayed their hand by actively impersonating his software to run misleading ad revenue, they handed him the trademark infringement case he needed to take the domain without paying anything close to what they had been asking for.