> I have a hard time seeing it from an "anti-capitalist" position.
The FSF position is anti-capitalist in at least one technical sense -- in the domain of software, it morally opposes capitalist model of property rights (and, in practice, uses a hack around the mechanism by which that model is implemented to subvert it.)
I don't agree with your assessment. Although they encourage people not to use the term "Intellectual Property", I think that's from the perspective that ideas are not property. This is not at odds with (my understanding of) the legal definition of IP (the name notwithstanding). The property in IP, is the monopoly it affords, not the idea. You can't own an idea (i.e. it is not legal to do so). You can own the government granted monopoly for implementing that idea.
The FSF is pro-copyright and pro-trademark. You can literally own software. In fact, one of the things the GPL makes very clear is that once you have given/sold someone the software, you can't suddenly revoke their rights to use it in any way they see fit. In fact the FSF is very outspoken about the dangers of using services which remove that right (for example ebooks where the seller can suddenly revoke your right to read the book).
When you receive software under the GPL, you own that copy. It is literally yours. You can modify it. You can study it. You can give it or sell it (for any amount of money) to someone else. Not only that, but you do not own the copyrights. The copyrights are owned by someone else and are not transferred with the software. So this means that you can not change the license, even with a derived work.
They like it that way. They do not want to change the ability to own software or own copyrights. The GPL does not subvert the notion of software as property -- it enforces the normal rights you would have if it were physical property.
I always saw intellectual property rights as a hack to try and encourage the production of non-rivalrous goods. The scarcity is in some sense enforced and artificial, and there's a strong argument to be made that they aren't they aren't "natural" property rights in the same sense as you get with rivalrous goods.
I think pro-capitalist (mostly libertarian) thought on this matter is divided.
> The scarcity is in some sense enforced and artificial
The problem is, you can mount the very same argument even in the case of normal property rights. At the beginnings of capitalism, the scarcity was in fact enforced by means of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure.
IMHO, most libertarians are used to idea normal property and take it for "natural", but not so in the "intellectual" world of ideas. It is partly because they benefit from intellectual world not yet completely owned by rich people. But I think people outside computing (unless they are distinctly leftist) are unfortunately lot more content with the idea of "intellectual property".
In my view, there is always a balance between "property rights" and other needs of society - availability of resources to the needy and the general public, innovation and growth.
You have the draw the line somewhere and using physical boundaries is quite useful. It create a natural distinction.
The problem with IP is that there isn't any limit to it. A driver license is not more or less a property than a patent, but it acts wastingly different. Can I sell a driver license? can I rent it? Can I cut it into two different part and give a friend half of it? What makes the exclusivity of state granted driver license a non-property, in contrast to the state granted exclusivity of an patent?
I don't see why anyone should "own" natural resources, or beaches for instance. I understand that we all need a place to live and we want to own our personal possessions, but it doesn't seem to me at all natural to extend this to mines, factories or huge tracts of lands on the other side of the planet, that you perhaps even never see. Maybe the scarcity of natural resources isn't such a big deal unless you have people who simply own to much of it.
In the same vein, I agree that authors and inventors should be compensated for the efforts, but the copyrights and patents shouldn't create more scarcity.
I don't think I can go along with the idea that a license is property. By the very nature of a license, you can't do any of that stuff with it. I'm the one, who, by nature of being granted the license, was granted the privilege the license confers (driving, practicing a specific trade, etc). It would make absolutely no sense to rent out a driver's license to someone who has not demonstrated the competency needed to get one.
The FSF position is anti-capitalist in at least one technical sense -- in the domain of software, it morally opposes capitalist model of property rights (and, in practice, uses a hack around the mechanism by which that model is implemented to subvert it.)