User:Slaporte (WMF)

Stephen LaPorte

General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation

About me

I am interested in copyright law/policy, bicycling, and open source projects.

As a volunteer, I am User:Slaporte. My home wikis are the English Wikipedia and Wikisource. Outside of my day job, some of my open source work includes contributions to Montage, a photo jury tool used for Wiki Loves Monuments and other regular campaigns. I co-created Listen to Wikipedia and a few other Wikipedia-related projects.

My work

I work on a wide range of topics for the Wikimedia Foundation leading the Legal Department. Our work included legal defense for the Wikimedia projects, support for the people who build it, and advocating for the legal principles that make it possible.

If you need to contact the legal department, please write to legalwikimedia.org instead of contacting me directly. If you need to report something urgent, please contact emergencywikimedia.org. If you are threatened with a lawsuit for your activities on Wikipedia, we have legal resources that may be available to you.

For legal ethical reasons I (as well as the rest of the legal team) can only represent the Wikimedia Foundation and cannot be the attorney for the community or chapters, though the legal team often provides strong support to the community in many ways consistent with Wikimedia Foundation goals.

Disclaimer:
Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of the Foundation unless expressly stated otherwise. For example, edits to articles or uploads of other media are done in my individual, personal capacity unless otherwise stated. The legal team can only represent the Wikimedia Foundation on legal matters, so we are unable to give legal advice to others, including community members, editors, or contributors. Communications with members of the legal team are not consultations and do not create any confidential relationship.

Contact me

E-mail: slaportewikimedia.org
Telephone: +1 (415) 839-6885
Address: One Sansome Street, Suite 1895, San Francisco, CA 94104 USA