Does a school syllabus trump state law? In my state (GA), there is a one party consent to recording a conversation. Does a prohibition on recording in the syllabus trump this? Would the school have any case against me if I did record?
I wouldn't say that it "trumps state law". Indeed, the State of Georgia, either expressly by statute or through the common law, establishes that teachers and school administrators have the authority to create rules and regulations governing the conduct of students that are not themselves unconstitutional as applied to students, although, in general these consequences can't resort to criminal punishments. Instead, typical punishments include detention, suspension (in school or out of school), expulsion, and adjustment of grades for an assignment or a course. Marks in one's disciplinary record and public shaming, forfeiture of eligibility to participate in school sponsored extra-curricular activities or honors (including marching at graduation), refusing to release transcripts, and historically (but much less so in recent years) corporal punishments such as spanking, have been options for schools to enforce their punishments. A prohibition on recording in a syllabus certainly wouldn't result in criminal punishments, and probably wouldn't even give rise to civil liability. Depending upon the purpose for which the recording was being used, it is even conceivable that the school's right to punish someone for violating a school rule could be estopped by First Amendment and whistle blower protection law considerations (e.g. if it was used to document harassment and discriminatory conduct for use in sharing with the school board or law enforcement or publishing on radio or TV or an Internet news source). But, the mere fact that conduct is legal outside a school setting does not mean that a school cannot prohibit and punish that conduct in its own rules. The closer case, upon which there is more division of legal authority, is under what circumstances a school can legitimately punish conduct away from school, for example, uploading rap lyrics about a teacher to YouTube from home without using any school resources to do so.
The answer is, "No, it will not default to the state where the recording device is located." Whether your recording is legal or not may depend on where the device is located, but it may depend on other things as well. For example, to sue under Florida law, "the persons bringing suit must be Florida residents or the improper "interception" must have occurred in Florida." Thus, if the someone from NY is recorded while in Florida by someone in NJ, Florida law does not apply. The rules used to determine which state's laws apply under which circumstances are explained thoroughly here. The issue of which state's laws apply is what is known as "conflict of laws." The basic idea is simple: Because you and the insurance company are citizens of different states, you have "diversity of citizenship." If the laws in your states differ, the court must decide whose law applies -- is it the state you called from, the state you called to, or federal law? Unfortunately for you, choice of law is hard even for lawyers to get a handle on. There are several different approaches states use to answer questions about conflict of law. Which approach a state uses to settle conflicts of law will determine whose law that state's courts will apply. To get a correct answer, you need to talk to an attorney who understands conflict of law and the admissibility of wiretaps.
Probably Not In general, the law gives a school significant discretion on how to run its courses and grade its exams. And it is unlikely that getting into a lawsuit over a grade will be a good way to proceed. You could explain more fully to your instructor why you feel unfairly treated, and if not satisfied by the response, go to the department chair or other higher authority as the structure of the school may provide. I would suppose that the instructor had permission to require the 3rd party software, or that school policy gives an instructor that option. It might be worth confirming that, however. For future tests you might be able to shutdown or suspend all popups to avoid the problem happening again. A &quot;game mode&quot; sometimes will do that.
Because you are on their premises and they get to decide what people can or can't do while on their property. This has nothing to do with if recording is legal or not, it has to do with basic property rights and trespass. Let's assume that recording is perfectly legal: so is eating ice cream. However, if its my shop, I can require that you do not make recordings just as I can require that you do not eat ice cream. If I make this requirement known you have three options: you can comply, you can leave or you can stay and do the thing I have prohibited. The first two are legal, the last one isn't; its trespass which is both a tort for which I can sue you and a crime for which you can be arrested and prosecuted.
In California, all parties to a conversation (people being recorded) have to agree to a recording. There are no special rules pertaining to husbands and wives. It is sufficient that the parties are aware that the recording is being made and they continue to talk, knowing that fact. There are exceptions, under Cal. Penal 633.5, in that surreptitious recordings are allowed in order to gather evidence of "extortion, kidnapping, bribery, any felony involving violence against the person, or a violation of Section 653m". To be used as evidence, there are also "predicate rules" to the effect that you have to prove who the voices are from, that the recording hasn't been altered, and that the recording is reliable (e.g., there isn't a mysterious 18 minute gap).
No Any such law would violate the US First Amendment as an improper restriction of speech and of the press. If done by the court rather thiygh a law, it would also conflict with 17 USC 105 which says that: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government Courts have restricted video and still photography of court proceedings, on the ground that the presence of cameras would disturb court sessions and distract witnesses and jurors. But that would not apply to the proceedings of an appellate court.
I don't think there would be such a case. The Supreme Court itself does not allow cameras in its courtroom. Also, when Florida wanted to bring cameras into Florida courtrooms, the Supreme Court said in the 1981 case Chandler v. Florida: Absent a showing of prejudice of constitutional dimensions to these defendants, there is no reason for this Court either to endorse or to invalidate Florida's experiment. It's also worth noting that "the jury may not be filmed" and "The Florida Supreme Court has the right to revise these rules as experience dictates, or indeed to bar all broadcast coverage or photography in courtrooms" were two of the specific rules that the Supreme Court noted Florida had implemented. Although those particular rules were not at issue in this case, the Court made no further mention of them, and thus perhaps tacitly approved of their constitutionality. Given that there does not seem to be a general right to film in a courtroom, it seems unlikely that there would be a right to film jurors in particular. Furthermore, this page lists the courtroom camera rules for several states. In many of them, filming jurors is prohibited. Presumably, if there was a ruling that this was unconstitutional, they wouldn't have those rules.
Copyright is held by the person who puts the content out there in fixed form. If A reads a prepared text and B talks extemporaneously, A has copyright to his fixed text. Whoever then records the debate holds copyright to B's talk (not a typo). If that person is B, A can point out that A's copyright was infringed, presumably leading B to an equitable arrangement that would avoid copyright violation litigation. However, if the recorder is A, then B is hosed. On the other hand, if neither party has a prepared text, then the guy who does the recording has all the rights. And if both parties have prepared texts, nobody gets to record without a copyright agreement.