What you say only makes sense in the world where printing presses have only just been invented. Copyright law, today, does not restrict only the "act of making

What you say only makes sense in the world where printing presses have only just been invented. Copyright law, today, does not restrict only the "act of making a copy". It restricts a whole lot of things. E.g., display, adaptation, performance — hell, even translation. For example, under US law, a copyright holder is expressly allowed "to determine and decide how, and under what conditions, the work may be marketed, publicly displayed, reproduced, distributed, etc." And this is just from the list of "Economic rights". Copyright also includes sth it calls "Moral rights" which has nothing to do with copies being made. If you post on Xitter claiming you wrote the LOTR books, you are technically in infringement of the moral rights of J.R.R Tolkien. ---- When you say, "I can do anything I want to it even if the copyright license forbids it as long as I don't distribute the code", you are very conveniently (and illegally) ignoring the copyright holder's exclusive right to control how their work is displayed or performed.