Flickr: All rights reserved, no rights reserved...?????

From Flickr user: Zanastardust

Flickr.....I don’t like it.  I’m told that it’s a great resource for finding photos that will improve your PowerPoint presentations, handouts, etc.  But I’m not convinced; in fact I’m just frustrated!  Here are some of the problems I have with Flickr:

1) Copyright: I understand the need for copyrights, but what I don’t like is that most of the photos that I liked were unavailable for download (so I can see but not USE them?!?!)  Why put up public photos if you’re not going to let people use them?!?! I kept finding these great photos, and after finally get to the point where I can download it, realize that I couldn't use it because it wasn't open access.  Couldn’t there be some icon on the photo on the first page so users can immediately know the accessibility?  I also found it hard to follow what the copyrights were.  Some photos said ‘All rights reserved’ but yet allowed you to download the photo.

2) Privacy policy:  Apparently you should be able to find the terms of rights regarding copyright, but after spending 20 minutes searching the site, I came up with nothing.  This would definitely be something I’d want to provide to my students before allowing (or encouraging) them to use Flickr, but if I can’t find this, I won’t be using it. 

3) Search Tool:  I found I got a lot of non-related content.  For example I typed in the search “deep sea animals”.  This is what I expected:

A deep sea hatchet fish from Flickr user: anniecrawley

But somehow, these came up too?!?!

A stuffed whale (on its side...is it dead?!?!)
by Flickr user:dodosimpledolls

Ok randomly a TERRESTRIAL frog jumping
from Flickr user: law_keven

4) The layout: I hate having only 15 pictures per page show up.  Can’t Flickr take a look at Google and realize that people want to be able to search and then scroll through the photos.  Its a pain trying to go back to a photo and wondering if its on page 13 or page 2. 

That being said, I think Flickr is good for one thing….storing your own photos.  I would use it to upload my photos so I could access them anywhere.  And if I didn’t want people using them, I wouldn’t make them public.  The only way I can see this possibly working for students is in a intro biology lab, uploading pictures of specimens and microscope slides to share with their classmates.

So Flickr….Yay or Nay?  

For academic purposes, NAY.  

For storing my photos of last nights BBQ, YAY.