This week, in our IPSI Talk, I made a presentation about free / open source software. We only have 12 minutes to present, which was quite a challenge.
As usual, I had way too much information, and in this time frame there is not much room for detail. But I think I was able to deliver the main points.
]]>This week, in our IPSI Talk, I made a presentation about free / open source software. We only have 12 minutes to present, which was quite a challenge.
As usual, I had way too much information, and in this time frame there is not much room for detail. But I think I was able to deliver the main points.
The target audience was people not very familiar with the subject, so it covers the basic: source code, free software, open source. It starts and finishes with the Cyber Resilience Act, but almost en passant, as a way to illustrate the dangers of having public policy makers who do not really know what FOSS is - don't be like the European Commission! (also, don't put definitions-ish and exclusions in Recitals).
Sadly, it was not recorded. But I'd like to reuse this, one of these days. Certainly with more time, and hopefully recorded.
You can find the slides here (6.44 MB). Slightly reviewed and modified not to be misinterpreted when read in the absence of the presentation itself.
]]>Article published in EDRi's digital rights newsletter, EDRi-gram, on January 17, 2024. Original article here. I have done a minor correction, marked.
]]>Article published in EDRi's digital rights newsletter, EDRi-gram, on January 17, 2024. Original article here. I have done a minor correction, marked.
The Portuguese Constitutional Court has declared a new data retention law proposal to be unconstitutional. The law proposed, among other things, general and indiscriminate retention of people’s telecommunications data – like traffic and location data – for up to six months for the purpose of investigating serious crime.
The proposal had been approved in the Parliament and it was supposed to replace the previous data retention law invalidated by the same court in 2022. The law was declared invalid following a complaint presented to the Justice Ombudsman by EDRi Member D3 – Defesa dos Direitos Digitais, in 2017.
In response to the Constitutional Court’s decision, the Parliament has swiftly approved another dubious data retention regime in the beginning of 2024, which might face the same fate of being declared unconstitutional…for the third time.
Following the Constitutional Court decision from 2022, the Portuguese Parliament looked into several options for the future of data retention in Portugal. The Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees created a data retention working group, which lasted for 476 days, had 13 meetings and made 7 hearings. Criminal investigation police and public prosecutors participated in the hearings, complaining about the lack of a data retention regime and asking for its reinstatement.
Initially, as reported by the press, a solution involving accessing metadata retained by internet service providers for billing purposes seemed to be favoured as an alternative to a specific database with retained data for criminal investigation purposes. However, in the end, the three biggest parties PS, PSD e Chega approved a law proposal which addressed some minor issues raised by the Court but maintained general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data, for the purpose of investigating serious crime, for six months.
Oddly, the period would be reduced to 3 months in case the user expressly opposed to it. In both cases, this period would still be longer than what the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) had already refused for Germany in the Spacenet decision more than one year ago.
Last September, D3 participated in a hearing at the Parliament by the data retention working group, where it warned against the obvious Constitutional failure ahead. In opinion pieces published in newspapers,several legal experts offered the same prediction. Law Prof. Francisco Pereira Coutinho, who has written about data retention in Portugal, stated:
«This proposal is unlikely to survive further review by the Constitutional Court. (…) The widespread and indiscriminate preventive conservation of metadata is common practice in police and autocratic states such as China or Russia. Its enshrinement in the European Union was the result of a security drift that I hope will never be repeated».
In this context, it was with no surprise that on December 4 2023, the Constitutional Court declared the unconstitutionality of the proposed law, due to general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data, following the CJUE’s case law.
D3 considered this decision “the most predictable Constitutional defeat ever”.
The law proposal was then sent back to Parliament, which was facing a pre-announced dissolution by the President of the Republic, effective on 15 of January 2024, and with elections scheduled for the 10th of March. As such, members of the Parliament rushed to approve a solution. On January 5 2024 a new law proposal was approved in the plenary.
However, as argued by D3, the new data retention regime is not any less problematic. The new law does not dictates a data retention scheme directly, but allows it through an authorisation from a special section of the Supreme Court. It will be up to the Supreme Court to define the terms of each data retention authorisation, with the law solely requiring them to be proportional and for the purpose of investigating serious crime. The law does not set duration limits, specific legal grounds for data retention to be authorised, or the criteria for it to be considered proportional.
As D3 puts it: “Perhaps the legislator thought that if they did not take explicit choices in the law, those could not be rejected by the Constitutional Court. An undefined data retention period could be considered too long, a delimitation of the scope of conservation that does not exist could not be considered excessive, etc.”.
In D3’s opinion, the new data retention regime is a clear violation of fundamental rights. According to the Portuguese Constitution, a restriction of fundamental rights must be set by law, including the core regime of such restriction. Existing Constitutional case law does not allow core parts of a restriction to be set, for example, by lower level regulations. Delegating core elements of a fundamental rights restriction in the Supreme Court makes it impossible to demonstrate the required proportionality of the restriction, namely, its necessity strict proportionality (i.e., prohibition of excess). Similarly, it cannot be demonstrated that the restricting law preserves the essential core of the restricted fundamental rights, as it must.
A further legal aspect which apparently went unnoticed so far is that while the law keeps data retention restricted to the purpose of serious criminal investigation, the actual catalog of the crimes considered as “serious” is much wider than what the case law of the CJEU would hint when referring to such a concept.
The President of the Republic has yet to announce whether he will once again be sending the proposal to the Constitutional Court. If he does not, D3 will certainly make sure the law finds its way there. In any case, the next chapters of the Portuguese data retention saga should be written in the upcoming weeks.
Contribution by: Eduardo Santos, EDRi member, D3 – Defesa dos Direitos Digitais
This year, to celebrate the Public Domain Day, I had an idea for a cool custom T-Shirt.
]]>This year, to celebrate the Public Domain Day, I had an idea for a cool custom T-Shirt.
I will be printing it soon, for myself. Can you get it, as well?
Well, it depends. There is this very ancient rule which says that nothing about Copyright can be easy, so let's respect it and make this more interesting. I won't say yes or no. I will say that:
I believe I am the author of this design, but I did not create the digital files, as I have zero knowledge on design or design software skills. I came up with the concept, the phrases, the positioning, the sizes and I picked the image. I did not chose the font but I described the type of font I was looking for. The very small mouse face at the end is from the M.L.F. logo, probably by Dan O'Neill (not sure), probably under copyright. Thing is, Dan despises copyright, particularly Disney's [btw, make sure to watch this awesome 18 min. documentary on Dan O'Neill and the Air Pirates!], so I'm taking my chances - you can always remove it.
So, I gave those instructions, someone else created the files. Then I gave further change instructions for the draft to be as close to what I wanted. And this is the final result.
Now, regarding Mickey. This version, from Steamboat Willie (likely inspired in Steamboat Bill, Jr., 1928), entered today in the Public Domain, in the USA. I believed it was not in the Public Domain in Portugal (where I'm based), for example, but in the meanwhile someone corrected me (Thank you!): it is in the Public Domain here as well: art. 37.º CDADC.
So it is up to you to figure out what you can or cannot do with it. It will depend on the jurisdiction. As far as I'm concerned, I am releasing those files under CC BY 4.0, so you can take them and print them at your favorite local shop or online.
Oh, and make sure to remix it and to share any remix you make! I'm sure it can be improved.
PS: It would be great to have those files on a open and editable format - which I don't think they are.
]]>No final de Setembro, por iniciativa da Iniciativa Liberal, que requereu a minha audição enquanto representante da D3, tive oportunidade de participar na última audição realizada pelo Grupo de Trabalho dos Metadados, criado dentro da Comissão de Assuntos Constitucionais, Direitos, Liberdades e Garantias da Assembleia da República.
]]>No final de Setembro, por iniciativa da Iniciativa Liberal, que requereu a minha audição enquanto representante da D3, tive oportunidade de participar na última audição realizada pelo Grupo de Trabalho dos Metadados, criado dentro da Comissão de Assuntos Constitucionais, Direitos, Liberdades e Garantias da Assembleia da República.
O formato permitia uma exposição inicial de 10 minutos, seguida de uma ronda de perguntas, e mais 10 minutos para resposta.
Tentei, em suma, transmitir a ideia de que o projecto em cima da mesa seria alvo de um provável chumbo Constitucional, por desrespeitar uma linha vermelha muito clara na jurisprudência do Tribunal de Justiça da União Europeia: continuava a prever-se, ainda que num prazo mais reduzido, a retenção geral e indiscriminada de metadados de tráfego e de localização.
Posteriormente, PS, PSD e Chega aprovaram o projecto de lei, mantendo a retenção nesses termos. Entretanto, tinha-me esquecido de colocar isto aqui no blog. Ao colocar hoje, beneficio já do facto de saber que o resultado esperado foi de facto confirmado: o Tribunal Constitucional teve de voltar a dizer o óbvio, naquele que é "o chumbo Constitucional mais previsível de sempre". Com este novo chumbo, o Presidente da República devolveu o diploma à Assembleia da República.
Não percam o próximo episódio desta saga, porque nós também não!
Vídeo disponível abaixo:
]]>Fui convidado para fazer uma apresentação no Encontro Nacional de Estudantes de Informática, que decorreu no passado dia 30 de Setembro de 2023, na Universidade de Aveiro.
A apresentação durou cerca de uma hora, tempo que já começa a ser curto para passar rapidamente em revista a história e actividade da D3 em temas de direitos digitais em Portugal, que conta já com um certo volume.
]]>Fui convidado para fazer uma apresentação no Encontro Nacional de Estudantes de Informática, que decorreu no passado dia 30 de Setembro de 2023, na Universidade de Aveiro.
A apresentação durou cerca de uma hora, tempo que já começa a ser curto para passar rapidamente em revista a história e actividade da D3 em temas de direitos digitais em Portugal, que conta já com um certo volume.
Infelizmente, a apresentação não foi gravada. Os slides foram mais ilustrativos à exposição, não tendo grande conteúdo, mas quem quiser ver os temas abordados, pode consultá-los aqui.
No evento também marcou presença a Free Software Foundation Europe, representada pelo Lucas Lasota (Legal Project Manager), que fez uma sessão inspiradora sobre neutralidade de dispositivos.
Há algumas semanas, fiz uma pequena apresentação para a 14ª Conferência Lusófona Ciência Aberta, que decorreu em Natal, Brasil. Na impossibilidade de estar presente, gravei previamente a apresentação, que segue o formato Pecha Kucha. Este tem como característica um limite de 7 minutos para a apresentação, que é um verdadeiro desafio ao poder de síntese.
A apresentação tem por base o artigo "Recursos Educacionais Abertos - Lições da UE para o Espaço Lusófono", um trabalho meu e da Prof. Giulia Priora, com publicação para breve (em formato ainda mais pequeno que o vídeo).
]]>Há algumas semanas, fiz uma pequena apresentação para a 14ª Conferência Lusófona Ciência Aberta, que decorreu em Natal, Brasil. Na impossibilidade de estar presente, gravei previamente a apresentação, que segue o formato Pecha Kucha. Este tem como característica um limite de 7 minutos para a apresentação, que é um verdadeiro desafio ao poder de síntese.
A apresentação tem por base o artigo "Recursos Educacionais Abertos - Lições da UE para o Espaço Lusófono", um trabalho meu e da Prof. Giulia Priora, com publicação para breve (em formato ainda mais pequeno que o vídeo).
Apresentação em vídeo "Recursos Educacionais Abertos - Lições da UE para o Espaço Lusófono" de Eduardo Santos, disponível sob a licença Attribution 4.0 International
Legendas disponíveis em PT/EN
Subtitles available in PT/EN
Participei ontem, pela D3, numa reunião com a Exma. Srª. Ministra da Justiça e o Exmo. Sr. Secretário de Estado dos Assuntos Europeus, sobre o ChatControl (Proposta de Regulamento UE que estabelece regras para prevenir e combater o abuso sexual de crianças - COM/2022/209). Estiveram também presentes Nuno Guimarães (ISOC-PT) e Jorge Pinto (AP2SI).
]]>Participei ontem, pela D3, numa reunião com a Exma. Srª. Ministra da Justiça e o Exmo. Sr. Secretário de Estado dos Assuntos Europeus, sobre o ChatControl (Proposta de Regulamento UE que estabelece regras para prevenir e combater o abuso sexual de crianças - COM/2022/209). Estiveram também presentes Nuno Guimarães (ISOC-PT) e Jorge Pinto (AP2SI).
Três pontos principais sobre a proposta, a nível jurídico (pois a nível técnico de informática e telecomunicações há muitos mais):
Mais informações sobre a proposta em ChatControl.pt.
Fotos:
]]>
In a period when the COVID-19 pandemic is occupying less and less space in the daily news and in our thoughts, with the World Health Organization (WHO) having stated that it “no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern”, things may seem to be returning to the normal. This is, of course, a simplification. On the one hand, the pandemic is not over and COVID-19 is still around (as an “established and ongoing health issue”, according to the WHO). On the other hand, the return to normal might not mean the same across society. The periods of lockdown and other restrictions of rights imposed changes in the daily practices and habits, among which those related to the digitization of work. In some fields, specifically at the workplace, the new digital practices might be here to stay, at least to a degree. That seems to be the case in the education sector.
In this light, taking a look into the currently consolidating practices and challenges of the education sector from a legal perspective seems to be much needed. This is the idea behind the last issue of the Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and Electronic Commerce Law (JIPITEC), titled “The Law and the Digital Classroom”.
As argued by the journal editors, and with my agreement, education makes a particularly interesting case study for lawyers – and not only them. Remote teaching long preceded the pandemic, and the sector was feeling the need to change in order to adapt to the digital age. Some things were already changing in copyright legislation before the pandemic, at least in the EU: article 5 of the CDSM Directive, for example, introduced a new mandatory exception for the use of protected works for educational purposes, specifically for digital and cross-border teaching activities. With COVID-19, schools, universities, libraries, and similar entities found themselves in a position where they had to suddenly find new solutions to allow them to continue their mission through digital means. This both exacerbated existing legal problems and created new ones.
A much publicly debated issue regarding online teaching during lockdown was online exams. Across the world, schools and universities resorted to e-proctoring technologies with the objective of monitoring students during online exams, to avoid cheating. The intrusiveness of e-proctoring software raised fundamental rights issues, not only regarding privacy and data protection, but also discrimination, which can lead to chilling effects and therefore threaten the intellectual freedom required in any learning environment. Giannopoulou, Ducato, Angiolini and Schneider offer an overview of online proctoring-related decisions in the EU, from a data protection and anti-discrimination angle. Those decisions refer to different types of e-proctoring software, with different modalities and features, in different countries, in a context of an exceptional situation. They can, however, provide an important view of the legal issues identified by the Member-states authorities. On data protection, the main issues identified by Data Protection Authorities were related to GDPR’s transparency rules and extra-EU data transfers.
On this matter, Wong, Racine, Henderson, and Ball present a more suitable alternative to handle the challenges of students’ data protection: a model of data commons for online learning. The objective is allowing students better agency in protecting their personal data. This is essential in education, as the power imbalance usually does not allow students to have a say on the tools adopted by schools and universities – even less during the pandemic, with the urgency of finding digital solutions.
Both these articles identify legal issues that must be addressed by policy-makers in the future, especially if online education and online exams are here to stay. At least in part, as hybrid education has now become common.
As it happens, remote teaching and learning can also present advantages: it allows providing access to education for more people, as well as providing better access conditions for people from distant locations and people with disabilities. In this context, Celeste and De Gregorio elaborate on the meaning of the right to education in the digital age, from a Constitutional perspective, namely whether there is a right to access education online. The Constitutional perspective on the right to education has been guaranteeing equality of access by offering financial aid to students who need it. The authors examine the idea of widening such constitutional obligation, adding to it a “a duty to guarantee that education should reach as many students as possible”, including through online education. Constitutional drawbacks are also identified, as this could deepen social inequalities related to the level of digital skills of the students, as well as the inequalities related to conditions of access to the Internet and digital devices.
Digital access to education materials, including crossborder access, was precisely at the core of Article 5 of the CDSM Directive in the EU. In light of the objectives of the provision and the pandemic experience it followed, Trapova offers insights to its implementation in Germany, Bulgaria and Ireland. The author claims that, while harmonization itself was not a goal of the provision, the mandatory transposition of the new exception did not manage to avoid diverse transposition models across Member States. None of these three countries managed to achieve a similar treatment for digital and analogue educational uses, which would be the ideal transposition, nor did they do a good job at achieving legal certainty. As such, Article 5 of the CDSM Directive appears to have been a missed opportunity, as the new educational exception targeting digital educational uses, after the pandemic, already seems outdated.
In a different contribution, Mezei explores the experience in Hungary, the first country to implement Article 5 of the CDSM Directive, in April 2020, specifically to respond to the outbreak of the pandemic. The author offers a “empirical analysis of the awareness, perceptions and use practices of students, educators and librarians of the University of Szeged with respect to digital (distance and online) learning and teaching in the pandemic”. Interestingly, both students and lecturers who filled the questionnaire declared to have relied more on shadow libraries than on the University’s internal platform that hosts digital education materials. The author links this to the fact that the main goal at that moment was just “surviving” the pandemic, rather than implementing better solutions, including improving the legal flexibilities of the system.
Naturally, relying on shadow libraries is not the way to overcome eventual shortcomings of the IP regime in providing access to educational materials. Other solutions are possible within the system. Such is the case of the Open Education Resources (OERs), analysed by Priora and Carloni, regarding the state of their usage in schools and universities in the EU. OERs are digital materials designed for educational purposes, open and freely reusable. Their adoption in the EU is still lagging behind the USA and Canada. Scattered efforts can be found in some EU countries, but they seem to be on the rise, with sector-specific EU and international policies already put in place. The authors offer both a pedagogic and legal perspective on the use of these resources. OERs are ideal to foster diversity, knowledge co-creation, students agency and empowerment, equality and inclusion in the education field. However, legal constraints related to EU’s expansionist IP policies conflict with the objectives of fostering digital education through the use of OERs. The authors identify a need to obtain a “more sustainable balance between author’s protection and right to education”.
In the same line, Caso and Pievatolo present the case of Consortium GARR, a public and free federated system used by a minority of Italian Universities as an alternative to the large proprietary platforms. Despite being under-resourced, GARR manages to offer an open and privacy-friendly learning platform for universities. As Priora and Carloni, the authors also identify contradictions in the EU policy making regarding open science policies and the strengthening of IP. Furthermore, the authors offer a broader view by emphasizing several forms of non-IP exclusive control on data, achieved through the control of technology and infrastructure, which are also an obstacle for open science. It is then necessary to go beyond IP policy and to look into issues that result from the power of platform monopolies and oligopolies, which ultimately may represent a threat to universities’ own autonomy. The authors identify important issues in this regard, such as public storage and access to research data, public infrastructure, free access to publications, control over digital learning and respective tools, and access to platform data for research purposes.
A general idea resulting from these articles is that, while copyright is still a major obstacle in fostering quality digital education in the EU (even after the CSDM Directive), it is only part of the problem. A wider legal approach is needed. As Celeste and Di Gregorio point out, in order to tackle the challenges of digital education, a coherent regulatory framework is lacking. It could take the form of Karen Maex’s Digital University Act, as Caso and Pievatolo suggest. Ideally, such framework would provide answers to the issues currently undermining the right of access to education. Those include: a more sustainable balance between authors’ copyright protection and the right to education (Priora and Carloni), and fostering open policies; safeguarding students’ privacy and data protection rights; addressing the conflicting interests and unbalanced power between private platforms and the education institutions (Celeste and Di Gregorio, among others) which ultimately represent a threat to their very autonomy and intellectual freedom (Caso and Pievatolo).
The right to education is a matter of fundamental rights. But the future of digital education in the EU, to date, has remained mostly a policy option. JIPITEC’s issue “The Law and the Digital Classroom” helps to identify concrete legal and policy problems that must be addressed, while suggesting possible solutions. But, at the end of the day, those are dependent on policymaking action. Let’s hope the EU lawmakers are paying attention and willing to take on the several legal challenges that education faces in this digital age.
]]>Na semana passada, participei no C-DAYS, o grande evento nacional de cibersegurança, promovido pelo Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança. O desafio que me foi proposto foi abordar o seguinte tema:
Para que servem as “Declarações” sobre direitos fundamentais e princípios digitais?
]]>Na semana passada, participei no C-DAYS, o grande evento nacional de cibersegurança, promovido pelo Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança. O desafio que me foi proposto foi abordar o seguinte tema:
Para que servem as “Declarações” sobre direitos fundamentais e princípios digitais?
Uma excelente pergunta, pois tantas vezes me perguntei o mesmo. Como quem me conhece melhor poderá adivinhar, a conclusão a que cheguei e a resposta que dei na apresentação foi que, de facto, não servem para muito. Infelizmente, penso que a apresentação não será disponibilizada.
Louvo o notório esforço do CNCS em trazer para o debate vários stakeholders, incluindo a sociedade civil. Não se trata apenas de implementar uma boa prática de diversidade de participantes e conseguir maior riqueza de intervenções, vai além disso. Esta atitude reflecte uma noção clara de que o tema da cibersegurança NÃO é um tema que deve ficar restrito à vertente técnica. O CNCS compreende plenamente que, em matéria de cibersegurança, o elemento pessoal e social desempenha um papel fulcral, que nenhuma medida técnica é capaz de compensar ou substituir. A cibersegurança tem de ser um tema horizontal a toda a sociedade, ou nunca conseguiremos atingir progressos significativos. Noutro exemplo, veja-se como o programa estava dividido em áreas temáticas que vão muito além da cibersegurança stricto sensu: Economia | Sociedade | Riscos e Conflitos | Políticas Públicas | Ética e Direito | Inovação e Tecnologias Futuras.
E não resisto a dizê-lo: este evento foi muito mais um fórum português da governação da Internet que o próprio Fórum Português da Governação da Internet, que hoje em dia atravessa as ruas da amargura e da irrelevância.
]]>The fourth planet belonged to a businessman. This man was so much occupied that he did not even raise his head at the little prince's arrival.
"Good morning," the little prince said to him. "Your cigarette has gone out."
]]>The fourth planet belonged to a businessman. This man was so much occupied that he did not even raise his head at the little prince's arrival.
"Good morning," the little prince said to him. "Your cigarette has gone out."
"Three and two make five. Five and seven make twelve. Twelve and three make fifteen. Good morning. Fifteen and seven make twenty-two. Twenty-two and six make twenty-eight. I haven't time to light it again. Twenty-six and five make thirty-one. Phew! Then that makes five-hundred-and-one-million, six-hundred-twenty-two-thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one."
"Five hundred million what?" asked the little prince.
"Eh? Are you still there? Five-hundred-and-one million-- I can't stop... I have
so much to do! I am concerned with matters of consequence. I don't amuse
myself with balderdash. Two and five make seven..."
"Five-hundred-and-one million what?" repeated the little prince, who never in his life had let go of a question once he had asked it.
The businessman raised his head.
"During the fifty-four years that I have inhabited this planet, I have been disturbed only three times. The first time was twenty-two years ago, when some giddy goose fell from goodness knows where. He made the most frightful noise that resounded all over the place, and I made four mistakes in my addition. The second time, eleven years ago, I was disturbed by an attack of rheumatism. I don't get enough exercise. I have no time for loafing. The third time-- well, this is it! I was saying, then, five -hundred-and-one millions--"
"Millions of what?"
The businessman suddenly realized that there was no hope of being left in
peace until he answered this question.
"Millions of those little objects," he said, "which one sometimes sees in the
sky."
"Flies?"
"Oh, no. Little glittering objects."
"Bees?"
"Oh, no. Little golden objects that set lazy men to idle dreaming. As for me, I am concerned with matters of consequence. There is no time for idle dreaming in my life."
"Ah! You mean the stars?"
"Yes, that's it. The stars."
"And what do you do with five-hundred millions of stars?"
"Five-hundred-and-one million, six-hundred-twenty-two thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one. I am concerned with matters of consequence: I am accurate."
"And what do you do with these stars?"
"What do I do with them?"
"Yes."
"Nothing. I own them."
"You own the stars?"
"Yes."
"But I have already seen a king who--"
"Kings do not own, they reign over. It is a very different matter."
"And what good does it do you to own the stars?"
"It does me the good of making me rich."
"And what good does it do you to be rich?"
"It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, if any are ever discovered."
"This man," the little prince said to himself, "reasons a little like my poor
tippler..."
Nevertheless, he still had some more questions.
"How is it possible for one to own the stars?"
"To whom do they belong?" the businessman retorted, peevishly.
"I don't know. To nobody."
"Then they belong to me, because I was the first person to think of it."
"Is that all that is necessary?"
"Certainly. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours.
When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you
get an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it: it is yours. So
with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever thought of
owning them."
"Yes, that is true," said the little prince. "And what do you do with them?"
"I administer them," replied the businessman. "I count them and recount them. It is difficult. But I am a man who is naturally interested in matters of consequence."
The little prince was still not satisfied.
"If I owned a silk scarf," he said, "I could put it around my neck and take it
away with me. If I owned a flower, I could pluck that flower and take it away
with me. But you cannot pluck the stars from heaven..."
"No. But I can put them in the bank."
"Whatever does that mean?"
"That means that I write the number of my stars on a little paper. And then I
put this paper in a drawer and lock it with a key."
"And that is all?"
"That is enough," said the businessman.
"It is entertaining," thought the little prince. "It is rather poetic. But it is of no
great consequence."
On matters of consequence, the little prince had ideas which were very
different from those of the grown-ups.
"I myself own a flower," he continued his conversation with the businessman,
"which I water every day. I own three volcanoes, which I clean out every week
(for I also clean out the one that is extinct; one never knows). It is of some use
to my volcanoes, and it is of some use to my flower, that I own them. But you
are of no use to the stars..."
The businessman opened his mouth, but he found nothing to say in answer.
And the little prince went away.
"The grown-ups are certainly altogether extraordinary," he said simply, talking
to himself as he continued on his journey.