Monkeying around with copyright law

PETA has filed a copyright infringement action on behalf of a crested macaque; the defendant is a nature photographer who used selfies that the macaque "took" by pressing the shutter button on a camera that he grabbed away from the defendant.

The lawsuit raises an interesting (although I believe easy) question of statutory standing and the zone of interests of the copyright laws--namely, whether a non-human enjoys rights under the statute. This article explains why the answer should be no. The lawsuit is also reminiscent of a 2011 lawsuit that PETA brought against Sea World on behalf of five Orcas, claiming a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. The court dismissed for lack of standing, concluding that the Thirteenth Amendment only protected human beings, although I argued it would have been more appropriate to dismiss on the merits for failure to state a claim. In the interim, SCOTUS decided in Lexmark International v. Static Control that whether a plaintiff falls within the "zone of interests" of a statute (and we can, I think, expand this to the zone of interests of the applicable substantive law) is properly a merits question. It should follow that, to the extent a macaque does not have rights under the Copyright Act, the complaint should be dismissed on the merits.

One other question: Is this worthwhile as a sample pleading for Civ Pro? While the lawsuit is a loser, and perhaps even frivolous, the complaint is well-drafted, includes a lot of factual detail, and illustrates the form and structure of a federal complaint. Is the content too off-the-wall for these purposes?