Summary
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Paint.net creator Rick Brewster has finally secured the Paint.net domain after 22 years of fighting.
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A malicious redesign of the website by the original owner led to copyright and anti-squatting action, and Brewster won the domain.
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The new Paint.net site will replace GetPaint.net; old links will be redirected during migration.
When I was using Windows, Paint.net was my go-to application when I needed an image editor that was more powerful than Paint but didn’t need all the bells and whistles of GIMP or Photoshop. However, I’ve always been concerned that you can’t download Paint.net from ‘Paint.net’. Instead, you had to go to GetPaint.net, which always felt weird.
For the past 22 years, the owners of the ‘Paint.net’ domain have refused to hand it over to the software’s developer; at least, unless you make a huge payment. However, the people behind the Paint.net domain made a critical mistake that allowed the developer of Paint.net to finally secure the URL it had been fighting for years.
The author of Paint.net finally protects the URL ‘Paint.net’
He fought for more than twenty years
As seen Neowinthe man behind the program, Rick Brewster, Posted in X about his newest purchase. After fighting for it for 22 years, Paint.net was finally able to take the URL from its previous owners. So you will soon be able to download Paint.net from ‘Paint.net’ and the old GetPaint.net will show the new one.
So how did Brewster manage it? As he explained in the answers, the original owners of the website either did not want to sell it or wanted “lots and lots and lots of money”. 22 years later, in December 2025, the owners made a fatal mistake: they redesigned the Paint.net website to look like the app’s actual download page, thus monetizing Brewster’s work with bad links and ads.
Brewster dismissed the law against the owners, arguing that their actions amounted to copyright infringement and domain ripping by profiting from someone else’s work. Brewster was able to win and, with the help of a lawyer, secured the Paint.net domain for himself.
You can actually see Brewster’s work on it the new Paint.net site. At the time of writing, he’s still moving things around, so there’s not much to see yet. However, when it’s done, Paint.net will serve as the main site and GetPaint.net will become a redirect because, as Brewster says, “There are 22 years of links that still need to work.”
