My digital camera, a Kodak Z710, stopped working under ubuntu a while back; the error message “Could not claim the USB device” was cited.
A quick google brought up the solution, on Ubuntu Forums – apparently the line relating to the camera was no longer present in /etc/udev/rules.d/45-libgphoto2.rules.
I inserted the relevant line,
SYSFS{idVendor}=="040a", SYSFS{idProduct}=="05b3", MODE="0660", GROUP="plugdev",
at the bottom of that file and, after reloading those rules with /etc/init.d/udev restart. This final step is important – otherwise you’ll have to restart your PC 
I got the idVendor and idProduct values from the output of lsusb. They were also present in the post to Ubuntu Forums.
