
Re: Good article.
My problem with this is that as far as I understand the photographer had specifically setup the camera so that the Macaques could trigger it. He had placed the camera and set the exposure, focus, etc. to take the picture, and simply left the button as a trigger.
I cannot see how this is any different from a photographer who uses other forms of trigger mechanisms, such as movement, heat, noise, etc to take a picture when there is a subject around. Are you saying that all of these photographs are also public domain? This seems a rather sweeping generalisation to take, and would cause problems for a number of wildlife photographers, but otherwise I cannot see how to distinguish them from the case here.
The Macaque did not "take" the picture as this implies intent and some sort of understanding of what it was triggering. The person with the intent and understanding was David Slater, who setup the situation so that a particular action by the Macaque would cause the picture to be taken with David Slater's equipment. As a result I cannot see how he is not responsible for, and therefore the author of, the image.