Actually, I've been getting the free paints as part of the daily logon bonus (along with the Museum cards) at least for a while - can't say exactly when it started. It was just the notification window that was updated with one of the last two patches.
Yeah, both Japan (and maybe other parts of Asia) and Europe (at least a good portion of it) have had access to region-specific content either for free or for next to nothing long before we in the US are getting this Camaro. I could never get the Lambo that was given to some folks as a holiday present, or the Jaguar that some folks could get for going to a Facebook page, simply because of where I live - even though I've played GT5 just about every single day since launch.
What I really want, though, is much more additional content then this one Camaro.
(That's my $0.02 contribution.)
Peace...