Obligatory affirmation: You are a not a lawyer, or if you are you are not my lawyer, and I should never take legal advice I receive from strangers on the internet.
That being said, I’m confused about phone recording laws and how they work if the two parties are in different states.
So, person1 is sitting in a one-party consent state, and calls person2, who is sitting in a two-party consent state, is 1 in the clear to record the call without 2’s permission? Would the recording still be admissible as evidence in both states? Or only in 1’s? Or not at all, as 2 was uninformed in a two-party state?
What about the reverse? If 2 - in the two-party state - were to record a call with 1, would he be in the clear because the uninformed party was in a one-party state?
I hope this question makes sense. LOL! I’ve edited as much as I can stand to. :o
Thanks for any information you can provide, or any references you can point me towards.
IANAL but I do make TV and documentaries and have recorded phone calls. The rule as I have always understood and applied it is that the person recording the call has to be in a one-party consent state (unless you seek and receive consent to record the call). Doesn’t matter where the subject is.
I don’t know whether or how this has been tested in court, or whether there is federal law on it, but this is what I’ve been told by production lawyers.
In CA, recording calls without permission is forbidden, which is awkward for production, though it really ought to be the law everywhere. I believe it’s possible to get around this by doing a conference call in which the “third party” is in a one-party consent state, but I don’t know whether you have to inform the subject that someone else is on the line–never done this myself.