[java] Why am I getting a "401 Unauthorized" error in Maven?

just change in settings.xml these as aliteralmind says:

  <server>
      <id>nexus-snapshots</id>
      <username>MY_SONATYPE_DOT_COM_USERNAME</username>
      <password>MY_SONATYPE_DOT_COM_PASSWORD</password>    
 </server>

you probably need to get the username / password from sonatype dot com.