The "storyliner" admitted to "being inspired" by a scene in Friends. The SABC on Friday told TV with Thinus that the public broadcaster does not condone plagiarism as it launched an investigation into the shocking plagiarism incident which quickly reverberated through South Africa's TV industry.
In April 2009 7de Laan characters in the story warned another character to be careful not to commit plagiarism.
Danie Odendaal Productions is not naming the "storyliner" who committed the plagiarism.
Wednesday evening's episode of 7de Laan at the beginning credits Maritha Broschk with "draaiboek" (script), and in the end-credits Linda Scheepers as head writer. It's not clear however who wrote the specific scene treatment which creatively lifted from Friends.
"The storyliner who proposed and outlined the scene was very young and inexperienced at the time and was not aware of the fine line between being inspired by another writer's ideas and copying them," says Danie Odendaal, executive producer of 7de Laan.
"Since neither the writer of the episode, nor the head writer or the producers are regular watchers of Friends, this mistake was not picked up and rectified."
"We apologise for this oversight. It is the first time in our 15 years on air that something like this has occured and one that should not have happened at all," says Danie Odendaal.
The SABC says in a statement that "as a broadcaster we regret the harm caused by this incident and is not one we take lightly" and that the SABC has "noted with regret viewers' complaints about the 7de Laan storyline debacle.
"We immediately, with Danie Odendaal Productions, conducted an investigation into the matter".
"The storyliner, who suggested the scene and then wrote the treatment, admitted to being inspired by a scene in Friends," says the SABC. "She has been made aware of the seriousness of the situation and has been disciplined accordingly by the production house."
"We are assured that her mistake was due to inexperience and not malicious intent," says the SABC.
"We would like to assure viewers that we are looking into ways of building further checks into our system to minimise the chances of this happening again," says the SABC.
