Flickr: so stupid to apologize when you are right

When I was a child someone taught me that if you are right you should never apologize. So I am still trying to understand the reasons that led the management of Flickr to publish this absurd "we are so sorry" statement.
They where right: Flickr has decided to do a commercial use of those pictures just because it was permitted by the Creative Commons licenses chosen by the photographers independently and without compulsion. In fact, when you upload a picture or an album on Flickr, you have to set the copyright status. You can choose one of the the six different CC licenses, and you can also keep your works under a "full copyright", choosing the "all rights reserved" option (see screenshot).
If a photographer is not able to read a simple and clear license, the problem is in his brain (or maybe eyes) and not in the behavior of Flickr. If reading the licenses is not enough to understand, people can also read the "Creative Commons licenses" entry on Wikipedia or the FAQ written by the CC community. In the web there is a huge amount of clear and very simple material to learn more about these tools; please no more excuses to say "ops, I didn't know it was like this!".
Flickr in this case has been transparent and honest. Why should they apologize? If they apologize, they debase the value of the Creative Commons licenses and all the activity of disclosure made in recent years to make them known to users.