People get too het up about copying and the need to be uber original.
Striving to be original is all well and good, but some of the best and most original stuff of the last decade (jungle, hardcore, hip hop) has been made by people borrowing heavily from other places and mashing it all together, and you end up with something amazing.
People starting out would be better off trying to get to grips with whats already out there, then try and pull new genres out their arses. Take a sample from here, whack a riff from there and maybe put something of your own on top of it etc. Worked for plenty of the greats. Making everything from scratch is pretty punishing for beginners.