Members of the Victorian Labor Party could have broken Victorian Surveillance Devices Act if they played recorded private conversations to others, according to a leading media law expert.

Victorian Labor's assistant secretary Kosmos Samaras has admitted he destroyed a recording device belonging to Fairfax journalist Farrah Tomazin after listening to its contents.

Mr Samaras said it contained a conversation he had had with Ms Tomazin that was recorded without his consent.

Mr Samaras also admitted to playing the recordings to Victorian Labor state secretary Noah Carroll and Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews's chief of staff John McLindon.

"You don't need someone's permission to record them, but you can't publish that conversation without that person's consent," media lawyer Justin Quill told the ABC.

"Publish doesn't have to be publishing on a news website or in the media, it can mean playing it to just one or two other people.

"This would be considered a private conversation under the Victorian Surveillance Devices Act.

"Legal advice to Daniel Andrews would probably have been to not say what he said today."

The Age's editor in chief Andrew Holden defended the decision made by Ms Tomazin to record the discussions, saying she had done nothing wrong.

"Based on the facts as I know them, Farrah Tomazin was entitled to record the conversation because she was a party to it and she did not have the intent for the recording to be published, so she would be in the clear legally," he said.

Dr Matthew Rimmer, an expert in intellectual property law, called the situation "a media law quagmire".

"It's a real doozy of a controversy. It goes into a whole host of legal and ethical issues that can become quite complex when dealing with things recorded on and off the record," Dr Rimmer said.

"There are legal arguments for either side (Labor and Fairfax) because we're trying to unravel a murky factual scenario.

"Journalists take notes and recordings for very good reason - in case they need to prove what they're reported is true.

"The fact that information held by the journalist on the recording device has been copied and published raises issues around whether there's been a breach of confidentiality.

"The editor-in-chief of the Age has said the ALP extracted and copied the recording, which could be also be a copyright law issue."