Neil Gaiman has won another battle in his royalties dispute with Todd McFarlane over SPAWN characters he created for a 1992 book, reports VARIETY. U.S. District Court Judge Barbara B. Crabb stated that Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany are derivative of Gaiman's work on Medieval Spawn.

Back in 2002, Gaiman won a jury ruling over the copyrights to Medieval Spawn, Angela and Count Cogliostro. He had created the characters and advised MacFarlane on how to illustrate the characters. Gaiman gained a percentage of revenues from the comics, merchandise and HBO TV series.

McFarlane has until Sept. 1 to hand over accounting on the revenue generated by the Dark Age characters.