The Pirate Bay today announced The Promo Bay, a new promotional tool that allows the creative types out there to have their content displayed as the lead image on The Pirate Bay Web site’s homepage.

The Promo Bay is described by them as such:

Do you have a band? Are you an aspiring movie producer? A comedian? A cartoon artist?

As you might have seen we sometimes replace our front page logo with others. Sometimes we link to important political issues like Internet censorship and sometimes it’s to some cool indie musicians we like.
We would now like to improve this feature. We want you to send us an email and tell us what you have and where you would like it to be shown.

They have a few rules in place for those interested:

They want three countries maximum for the group’s image to be seen. They point out that choosing smaller countries might improver your odds of being selected, but they might make your group the worldwide image if you’re that good.

They won’t accept anything hateful as they want the site to be about discovering culture from around the world.

They want a link to your work so that they can redirect traffic to your Web site. They also require that the link takes people to a place where they can get at the content for free. They don’t mind selling merchandise, but they don’t want this to be about money.

For those interested, you can fill out the form at the Web site for The Promo Bay.

It depends on who you’re talking to whether or not the Internet ruined these things or made them way better. I think most users tend to lean toward the latter. It is usually the providers of these things that have a beef with the ‘net. So naturally, this time it’s the providers of stand-up comedy who are complaining. At least the old ones.

Michael Ventre at MSNBC takes a look at what stand-up comedians are saying about the Internet age, citing an issue of Rolling Stone:

“I think the Internet is slowly going to take down all creativity,” says Albert Brooks. “You can take any artist in the history of the world … and if you can have widespread opinion on their first time out, you can kill the great spark that makes them who they are … Large amounts of opinion early in an artist’s life is like a cancer.”

“I think it’s actually bad for performers who are starting out,” says Craig Ferguson. “They’re not getting a chance to fail in private.”

TechDirt filed this story in the "when-I-was-your-age-I-performed-to-3-people-in-a-shack-and-I-liked-it department", and I kind of agree. I can see some of their points, but change is a fact of life, and those who do not accept it are more likely to get left behind.

In all fairness, there’s a good chance that there are plenty of comedians out there young and old who view the Internet as a great place for opportunity. I would think that if anything, it would make young comedians want to strive to be the best they can be. The above comments of these comedians should serve as motivation for this very concept.

Like other forms of entertainment, the providers will likely have no choice but to embrace the Internet, and the booming popularity of online video will only ram that point home. It’s not like the Internet is going to replace comedy clubs. As far as I know, people still enjoy going out. MySpace’s Karaoke offering isn’t replacing Karaoke bars. Although, the economy might make the Internet seem a little more appealing as a source of comedy than 2-drink-minimum clubs with cover charges. But that’s just another reason for comedians to embrace the Internet.