I've recently downloaded the P2P Application Frostwire for my online radio station as a lot of bands use it to give free downloads and often free albums out, some of these bands quite popular.

Most come with a Creative Commons license such as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ - simply you can play, edit and so on the track for your own personal usage kind of thing, acknowledging the original artists. But you can't for commercial use.

My question is, would I legally be able to download albums that artists are giving away for free and play them on my radio, as while this could be classed as commercial use, I won't be earning money from playing the tracks, and because we are licensed we will actually be paying royalties when we play them.

I'm not really sure and rather than risk it I thought I'd ask, so if anyone has a clue please let me know.

Thanks for reading.