Its logical the fresh content to bring you a good ranking.. but think about something. As an example , what happens when cnn.com publishes an outstanding article about something ? Does the cnn keep that article strictly attached to their name ? Thousands of 'mini' news sites copy and paste almost the same article or 90% of it, so ? do they all get bad ranking ? I don't think so. So probably copy/paste is not so bad , but do not flood you website with it.
yes its not bad, but its not given as much importance either... its like when you hear something for the first time... something important... or just maybe something unique... now someone else comes and tells you the exact same thing.. obviously the new person wont be deemed as "bad", but the significance is rather much decreased