Is it legal to record a business call in Canada? I am using a ZenPhone2 which I set to record all calls. I had a call with a sales person about a service I was interested in (i was the one that answered the call). This service offered was not what the sales person said would be offered. Can I use this call and send the person an audio snippet of the call to help my argument with this particular company? The sales person did not know he was being recorded, nor was there any indication of any party doing any call recording. Can this be done without any legal repercussions?
The Canadian law governing interception of communication (wiretapping and recording) is explained here. Canada is a one-party country, so as long as one party (you, for example) consent, this would not be a violation of that statute. That source also believes (not unreasonably) that is would not constitute the tort of invasion of privacy since under the act The nature and degree of privacy to which a person is entitled … is that which is reasonable in the circumstances, giving due regard to the lawful interests of others (bearing in mind that is it allowed w.r.t. Section 184(1) of the Criminal Code: that is, it is reasonable to do so).
Your terms and conditions must comply with the laws in: Your jurisdiction (California) Your customer's jurisdiction (each of the US states, Canadian provinces and ultimately countries and sub-jurisdictions in Europe) If they do they will generally be enforceable; if they don't then they will not be enforceable and you may be exposing yourself to civil and criminal sanctions. While not immediately relevant to you, Australian Consumer Law has such sanctions to goods sold into Australia from anywhere in the world; I am not familiar with other jurisdictions. With respect to your comment that you will not accept returns or refunds, this would expose you to potential fines in Australia of $220,000 for an individual or $1,100,000 for a corporation - under Australian Consumer Law returns and refunds are a consumer right. I strongly suspect that most of the jurisdictions you are selling into would take a similar position. A general "catch-all" like "to the extent permitted by law" may reduce the risk of being prosecuted but it would not eliminate it entirely. Again, in Australia, the provision is that you must not engage in deceptive and misleading conduct - merely suggesting that you will not give a refund even with the limitation above - may still be deemed "deceptive and misleading" if the court feels that a reasonable consumer might assume that they are not entitled to a refund. You need professional legal advice on this.
I'm pretty sure that under GDPR, you can indeed request them to send all data they have on you. If it's a complex request, they may charge you something like £10. If they have a lot of data on you, they may list the categories of data they have and ask you to pick one, rather than them having to collect and send everything. They should respond within one month, but iirc in the UK implementation, they can inform you (within that month) that they will respond within three months instead. For the rest, I only know current Dutch law. GDPR is not that different from what we already had (in general terms) and in many cases it even extends it. Under our law (WBP), you can also request a correction of the data in case it is incorrect, or deletion if they no longer need it for the purpose for which it was collected and stored. I don't really know how that works out in practice though, as Facebook can of course claim that "being able to connect you to your friends when you sign up for WhatsApp or Facebook with that number" is a legitimate purpose (in their eyes). They might also not have your full name and therefore not be able to connect your data to your request. Or, perhaps, they have only your full name (and there are probably more people with your name), so they'll have a hard time verifying that it's really your data which they would be handing over or deleting. The company is required to verify your identity before acting on your request. How they implement that is up to them. Under Dutch law, if I remember correctly, any data that can be connected to your person by any party is personally identifiable information (PII). While Facebook might not be able to find who's behind a phone number, your carrier most certainly can. Therefore, the data falls under PII protection laws and they will have to implement a way to verify you and get you your data. Finally, whether your local laws apply to Facebook, I don't know exactly. There's lots of information on this though, so you should be able to find it. Generally, countries say that if something happened within their territory (e.g. you signed up for WhatsApp while in the UK), their law applies. Companies, I've read, will instead try to claim that their main office is in SomeCountry and therefore SomeCountry's laws apply. But I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find a Facebook office somewhere where GDPR applies, so that's probably fine. While not an exact answer and while I am not sure about everything, I hope this gave you some pointers to go on!
A variant of this question is addressed in Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, with recording taking place in a call between a 1-party and an all-party jurisdiction (California and Georgia). The CA Supreme court ruled in favor of California as the &quot;most-interested&quot; jurisdiction, which if applied to your hypothetical would favor Florida as the most-interested jurisdiction. There would be a true conflict in the law of the two jurisdictions, and (with substitution of names of jurisdictions) as a general matter, the failure to apply California→Florida law in this context would impair California's→Florida's interest in protecting the degree of privacy afforded to California→Florida residents by California→Florida law more severely than the application of California law would impair any interests of the State of Georgia→Nation of Canada The thing is, the person in Florida is violating Florida law by recording, so the cross-jurisdictional issue would only favor the person being recorded in Florida. The Florida statute makes no mention of where the person being recorded is, so there exception to the effect that the law does not apply when the person being recorded is outside of Florida. The Florida person broke Florida law.
There are two separately copyrightable elements to a sound recording, as you point out: the musical work, and the performance. If you want to record a cover version of a song, what matters is the license you hold, if any, to the underlying musical work. The license to the recording is not relevant unless you are sampling or duplicating the recording. The key, however, is that whoever you got the song from has the same issue. With this in mind, there are three basic scenarios: 1) The recording is released under a cc license, but the song is in the public domain. If the song is in the public domain, the recording license is irrelevant; you have the right to cover it. 2) The recording is released under a cc license, but someone other than the recording artist holds the rights to the musical work. In this case, the recording artist almost certainly does not have the right to distribute the recording under a cc license. Musical works are subject to a "mechanical license;" this means that you can record a cover version without permission, but only if you pay royalties to the composer. If you record a cover under these circumstances, both you and the person who attempted to release the item under a cc license will be liable. 3) The recording is released under a cc license by a recording artist who also holds the rights to the musical work--in other words, an original composition. In this case, the answer to your question will depend on the specific license language, and a court's interpretation of it. The CC license defines "Licensed Material" as "the artistic or literary work, database, or other material to which the Licensor applied this Public License." Some CC licenses permit the Licensed Material to be "translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified in a manner requiring permission under the Copyright and Similar Rights held by the Licensor." Some don't. The CC web site lists litigation involving their licenses, and no litigation listed there seems to address the question of whether, when a CC license is applied to a sound recording, the "Licensed Material" includes the underlying musical work. It is therefore hard to predict what a court would do; you would need an opinion from an experienced intellectual property attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. Or, on a more practical note: if you aren't sure, ask the license holder. If they give you permission, that resolves the issue.
The law in every country where your service is available prevails. That means that if your servers are in Estonia, your file storage is in Lithuania, your company is in Switzerland, you are in France, you hold Thai citizenship, your users are in the USA and the signal transits through the U.K., Belgium, Germany, Canada and Poland then you are subject to the laws of each and every one of them. In addition, if China has reason to believe that the stored files contain matters relating to their citizens then they can take an interest. And so on and so forth ... A country has jurisdiction wherever it wants to have jurisdiction subject to the limits of and its ability to actually enforce its laws. What you are proposing is certainly illegal in many countries and you need to seek professional legal advice - not rely on strangers on the internet.
IANAL, and as @GeorgeBailey suggests, you should ask one. That said, some aspects of your question are directly addressable with what we know. Does US law states anything about this? Yes. Federally this falls under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. §2511. Workplace monitoring generally falls under either the "System Administrator Exception" or under Consent. In general, continuing past a banner constitutes consent. Does company policy enforcement with such a warning over ride the right to not be subject to surveillance? In general, yes. You don't need to use the companies network if you don't want to consent - and they don't need to hire you if you don't want to use their network. But it's their network, and their rules apply. There are some nuances, and courts have found that the wording of the notice has made a difference in some cases, but overall, if the systems are properly posted with banners, then the employer may capture communications. See the "Bannering and Consent" section of this article from cybertelecom.org, e.g.: Even if no clicking is required, a user who sees the banner before logging on to the network has received notice of the monitoring. By using the network in light of the notice, the user impliedly consents to monitoring pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(c)-(d). Note that stored data is covered by different laws than communications. It's a nuance. Is it ethical to sniff all the data without giving any other warning than the logon banner? "Ethical" is a very different question than "Legal", and largely more subjective. Most employers require signed consent for monitoring as a condition of employment, and use banners thereafter. That is ethical by my definition, in that it meets or exceeds the requirements of the law, and does not mislead or use subterfuge. The tone of your question suggests you find it distasteful, and therefore probably it violates your personal code of ethics.
The opt-out option is exercised by hanging up the phone. The federal wiretapping law 18 USC 2511 would contain any specific restrictions on recording federal employees, and there are no such restrictions. Each state has their own laws as well, so if either party is in a two-consent state such as Florida, consent from the other party would be required. The federal law only requires one party consent. It is possible that the individual expanded a separate rule that s/he may have heard of, one prohibiting recording of an IRS due process collection hearing that is conducted by telephone, as ruled in Calafati v. Commissioner. In that case, petitioner owed taxes and penalties and there was a process where the IRS was going to take his stuff, which requires a hearing. There is a federal statute 26 USC 7521 allowing the in-person hearing to be recorded, but no mention of recording telephone hearings. The Tax Court has taken the position that if it is not explicitly allowed, the IRS can forbid it: but this is in a very specific context, i.e. a specific legal hearing.