my $data;    # ugly global; don't do this

open(LOG, "file.ext") or die ("oops, could not open source", $!);
local $/;             # slurp mode (see perlvar Record Separator)
$data2 = <LOG>;
close(LOG);

open(LOG2, ">","path/to/copy_of_file.ext") or die ("oops - could not open target", $!);
print LOG2 $data2;
close(LOG2);