USB Brother MFC 8440 printer/scanner does not attach to guest OS

[smilingfrog]

More details here: ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=54341

When I try to attach the Brother MFC 8440 printer to Windows 2000 guest in Mint 14 host, I get

"Failed to attach the USB device Unknown device 04F9:015F [0100] to the virtual machine Windows2000.

Failed to create a proxy device for the USB device. (Error: VERR_READ_ERROR).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) Component: Console Interface: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}"

This has happened in a number of distos for me. I cannot get it to work with the information I have found on the internet.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.