I meant to say in cases in which content hasn’t been posted to Public MaidSafe shares by the original author, there would be no watermark of any kind (unless the posters attempt to watermark something they haven’t authored as theirs).
Related to author-watermarked content posted to Public shares, I wasn’t discussing that but I also wasn’t aware of the status of that feature. I just searched for it (there’s a relevant mention of it here: SAFE Pod SF - SafeCoin - The SAFE Ecosystem - #26 by dirvine) and it seems it’s something that can be added relatively easily.
If watermark-related payments can be tracked easily then it would be possible to have content earnings pre-collected (e.g. by the foundation or some similar organization) for authors who aren’t yet on the network, although that would create complicated “digital paperwork” if said authors do get on MaidSafe.