Publius

It wouldn't affect me, or really anyone posting in this thread. But that's not the concern, and we are the wrong opinions to poll.

So the questions you've got to ask yourself are:

• Will the change prevent (read: Not reduce or restrict, but eliminate) the negative behavior, and allow batoto to regain its status as a preferred conservancy for scanslators to deposit their works? 
• Will this slow down and/or prevent the slew of DMCA which have hamstrung your website, but not many others?

If the answer to either question is 'no', then making the site private will likely kill it. Annoying a large segment of your traffic while continuing to lose content and still getting your pages ripped by other sites is a big mistake. A wall that is only so high that it annoys the readers, but does not effect a positive change is always a mistake. The wall must either be high and effective, or non existent. Can a wall be that high?