Eg imagine if this is how the system worked right now. You could have streamers watch unpopular (modern) movies with their audience. Or a youtuber could read a book to their viewers (listeners). And it wouldn't have to be content that's 100+ years out of date.
You could also make it so that when the copyright protection first expires then a percentage of the income earned through the use of the work gets paid to the author for some number of years. Eg you're free to use the work, but you've got to pay some percentage of the revenue to the author for 10 years.