CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Another man charged with conspiracy in a nationwide software piracy case has been sentenced to one year in federal prison.

John Neas, 49, of Holbrook, Mass., was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Tuesday.

Neas was the seventh to be sentenced in the case in which several people pleaded guilty to stealing and distributing computer software around the world.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold Huftalen said the scheme involved copying and sharing the software through secret and stolen Internet links at banks, communications companies and data centers.

Huftalen said the case began to develop in 2000 with the help of a New Hampshire resident involved in one of the schemes; and it took authorities three years to compile the case.

Without the knowledge of the businesses, servers used to distribute the software were based at Bank of America in Boston; Verio Data Center in Sterling, Va.; Qwest Communications lab in Balston, Va.; a cable television company in Maryland; a computer communications company in Brandon, Fla.; an apartment at Tulane University in New Orleans; and the Nebraska Department of Highways.

Others were based at a North Easton, Mass., house and an Ames, Iowa, apartment. Huftalen said Neas operated a server called City Morgue in North Easton.