As of September 3, 2026, Songtradr says its Marketplace is closing, but it has not published the exact final closure date. Its support page first named September 1, then extended the deadline to “early Fall 2026” and said a precise date would follow (Songtradr support).
That answers the current-status question. It does not make “Is Songtradr legit?” a useful yes-or-no question.
A legitimate music service can change direction, stop a product, or move its attention elsewhere. The better test is whether you can identify the company, read what it says will happen, preserve your records, understand the rights you granted, and move the parts of your catalog that should never depend on one dashboard.
Legitimacy is not a permanent property of a company; it is a set of checks you can rerun.
This article is about that due-diligence test. If you need the earlier timeline and destination options, read the separate Marketplace closure article. The task here is to work out what you can verify today and what you should hold yourself.
Songtradr is a real company, but the Marketplace is changing
Songtradr’s own notice says it is shifting its focus toward Bandcamp, which it describes as part of the Songtradr family (Songtradr support). That is direct evidence of a product decision, not evidence that the service never existed.
The same notice gives artists a concrete instruction: save music files and ownership data from the dashboard immediately (Songtradr support). An alternate Songtradr support page carries a near-identical closure notice, so artists may encounter more than one published version while checking the company’s guidance (alternate Songtradr support notice).
The date language matters. One line still says users will lose account access after September 1, while the same live notice says the deadline has been extended to early fall (Songtradr support). Do not resolve that tension by guessing. Treat access as temporary, export now, and keep the dated notice with your records.
If you are not sure what you uploaded or agreed to, that is normal. Start with what you can download, then read the current account terms and any signed deal documents attached to a specific license.
Legitimacy is four separate questions
“Legit” often collapses four questions that should be answered separately.
1. Does the service identify what is happening?
Songtradr has published a first-party closure notice and an extension. It also says the exact closure date is still to come (Songtradr support).
That gives you something specific to monitor. Save a PDF of the notice with the date you accessed it. If the wording changes, you will still have the version that informed your decisions.
2. Can you recover your catalog records?
Songtradr tells users to save their music files and ownership data (Songtradr support). Your export should include more than audio:
- every master recording, instrumental, alternate mix, and stem available to you;
- titles, alternate titles, artist names, writer names, and ownership percentages;
- the unique code attached to each recording, or ISRC;
- the work code attached to the composition, or ISWC, where one exists;
- publisher and performing-rights information;
- signed licenses, transaction records, and payment statements; and
- any document showing who may approve a use.
The sync glossary explains those identifiers if the export is full of terms you have never had to use.
3. Can you prove what you own away from the dashboard?
A song contains two separate properties. The composition is the music and lyrics. The recording, often called the master, is the particular recorded performance. Sync is permission to use a song with picture, so a buyer normally needs permission covering both properties.
Ownership should not live only in a platform field. Federal law generally requires a transfer of copyright ownership to be in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed (17 U.S.C. § 204). A dashboard can display a split, but your signed split sheet, assignment, producer agreement, or license is the evidence you keep.
This is also where royalty categories must stay separate:
- A performance royalty on the composition comes from public performance.
- A mechanical royalty on the composition comes from reproduction and distribution.
- A digital-performance royalty on the recording comes from certain digital audio transmissions.
- The writer share and publisher share are composition-side payment lanes; neither is the recording-owner share.
Moving a catalog file does not automatically move or erase those underlying rights. The signed documents and registrations are what let the right people identify and pay you.
4. Are your collection accounts independent?
The Mechanical Licensing Collective provides public tools for searching works, registering them, and claiming shares in its U.S. mechanical-royalty system (The MLC tools). SoundExchange separately lets recording artists and sound-recording owners register for the digital-performance royalties it administers (SoundExchange registration).
Those are different from a sync marketplace. The MLC is concerned with composition mechanicals under the U.S. digital blanket license. SoundExchange is concerned with the recording side of the statutory digital-performance license. Your marketplace account should not be the only place where the underlying songs and recordings are identified.
What the Bandcamp language does and does not tell you
Songtradr says its focus is moving toward Bandcamp and gives figures of 80–85% of digital revenue, 90% of physical-merchandise revenue, and payment within 24–48 hours (Songtradr support).
Those figures describe the destination named in Songtradr’s notice. They do not tell you that a Bandcamp account replaces sync representation, composition registration, SoundExchange registration, or a record of your signed grants.
The distinction is practical. Selling a recording to a fan is not the same transaction as granting permission to put that recording and its composition under picture. Nor is either transaction the same as collecting a performance, mechanical, or digital-performance royalty.
Run this current-state check before uploading anywhere else
Use the same checklist for Songtradr and for any service that asks for your catalog.
- Save the current public notice. Record the page address and access date because Songtradr has not yet named the exact final closure date (Songtradr support).
- Export every file and data field. Follow Songtradr’s instruction now rather than treating “early Fall” as a guaranteed access window (Songtradr support).
- Match each recording to its composition. One recording may embody a song written by several people, and the two rights need separate ownership records.
- Locate every signed writing. Federal law’s signed-writing rule is why an email address and a percentage field are not enough by themselves to prove a transfer (17 U.S.C. § 204).
- Check independent royalty registrations. Search the composition through The MLC’s tools, then check the recording-side path through SoundExchange.
- Read the next service’s actual terms. Look for the rights granted, the length of the grant, exclusivity, payment language, withdrawal procedure, and what happens to existing licenses after you leave.
- Keep one catalog ledger you control. It should identify the composition, recording, writers, publishers, owners, codes, registrations, agreements, and current representatives.
None of this decides whether a particular contract is right for you. It gives you the documents needed to understand the decision and, if necessary, ask a qualified lawyer a precise question.
The useful answer is dated, not permanent
As of September 3, 2026, the support record says the Songtradr Marketplace will close in early fall, the exact date is still pending, and users should save their files and ownership information now (Songtradr support).
So: Songtradr is not exposed as imaginary by the closure of one product. But the closure is a clean demonstration that no platform should be your only copy of a catalog, a split, a signed grant, or a royalty registration.
If you want one practical next step, run each exported song through the free one-stop self-audit. It will show you which ownership and clearance records are missing before you hand the catalog to its next home.