Hi there, Always go for original content. Except of the fact that by copying you can be charged/acused by plagiarism, an original content will actually help you in going your page rank up in google. original content = small but sure steps. Good luck.
You can't beat original content. Copy-pasting and editing will just get you a bad reputation and possibly a penalty from search engines. There's a reason they teach you NOT to plagiarise in schools.
Original content that you can call your own is almost always better than straight copy and pasting. I'm sure claiming something that is not directly written by you will get you in trouble not just SEOwise.