Thanks for your suggestion.
I think that what Flickr does is a bad practice that adds complexity to the system in the form of manage authority and permission over a single image for n+1 of users. What bothers me is that is just to save space, which is the cheapest asset in the whole thing.
Not because Flickr does something it means it is meant to be follow, I don't want to work on that. However, V4 is modular. If you ask directly to me I will answer based on my experience, but other devs may be interested.