Proven Industries v. Trevor McNally

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In 2025, Proven Industries, a lock company, is attempting to sue Trevor McNally, a lockpicking expert on multiple social media platforms, for various questionable damages caused by the publishing of a currently delisted video demonstrating McNally picking the lock with a makeshift shim.

Background

On April 2025, Trevor McNally published a video on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram intended to both educate and entertain users on the insecurity of the lock via the usage of a makeshift shim created out of a soda can. In response to McNally's video, Proven Industries submitted takedown requests of the videos on all of these platforms, and then soon after filed a lawsuit against McNally.

A screenshot taken from a taken down McNally video displaying Proven Industries' copyright claim over the video

Lawsuit

Claims

1. Copyright infringement Cited multiple times inside of the legal document, Proven Industries attempts to claim that McNally was not following fair use doctrine for the purposes of his video. Notably due to the takedown of McNally's content, Proven instead uses screenshots to demonstrate theft, seen in sections 27 and 29 of the document.
2. Defamation
3. False advertising Proven Industries claims that McNally falsely advertised the ease in bypassing the lock in sections 32-35, and directly claimed that McNally was acting childish to support these claims. Additionally in sections 36-40, Proven claims that McNally was doctoring the footage, as the shim was shown deformed through the video, despite how aluminum is capable of being easily deformed under stress.
4. Violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (“FDUTPA”) This claim was made despite the defendant living in Virginia.
5. Torturous interference
6. Unjust enrichment Covered in section 4 in the introduction:

   On information and belief, McNally is affiliated with and/or an agent of Covert Instruments (hereinafter "Covert"), a company that sells lock-picking tools. McNally lists Covert's website on his social media pages, and Covert Instruments' website features McNally and benefits from the misleading content McNally produces.

   This claim has been cited as questionable by consumers and the media considering the fact that the shim was made from an ordinary object rather than any product sold on the website.
7. Civil conspiracy
8. Trade libel

Additionally, Proven attempted to file an emergency injunction against McNally to prevent further posting about the flaws of their locks, called for within this injunction was emergency relief for damages that exclude engineering costs to resolve the lock's vulnerability, meaning if Proven Industries is to win this case, the company will neglect to resolve the flaws of the lock itself.

Rebuttal

This section is incomplete. This notice can be deleted once all the placeholder text has been replaced.

To be added - Read comments.

Consumer response

Coverage on these legal proceedings from media outlets appear to look down upon Proven Industries' attempts to sue McNally.

From consumers, notably legal professional Runkle of the Bailey, call out the questionable nature of each claim within the legal document. From the subreddit r/LockPickingLawyer, many users back McNally's response towards Proven.

Trevor McNally's personal response from the legal proceedings started with a short and hastily shot short clip to disprove most claims shown in the document by picking the lock mere seconds after obtaining the lock. This has continued into a series of clips demonstrating other locks sold by Proven Industries being bypassed by McNally.