$2000 is quite a high budget, for less than £500 one can get decent software, cables, recording interface and 2 decent microphones.
IMO multiple microphones is a better solution. As I've mentioned with one microphone you need to get the microphone's position perfect so that you have the desired balance of guitar and vocals. If you then wanted to add an extra instrument or backing vocals, the mix would be ruined. By having individual takes (via two microphones or multi-tracking) you have much more opportunities.
If you only want to get some demos together, you could consider recording them at a budget studio, or find students studying music production to record and produce them for you.
About Copyright, I'm not sure how it works in Costa Rica, but here if you record your songs to CD, post it to yourself, and don't open it, then you have legal evidence if a case needed to go to court over copyright infringement.
To get gigs, you need to have something recorded for sure, but online is becoming more and more important, so realistically you need an online presence. Soundcloud is a great place to upload your work (you can upload 2 hours for free). As there is an upload date, then could also be used as proof of copyright, along with a creative commons agreement. Bandcamp is a good way to distribute your music.
Getting signed isn't as easy as having a demo, playing gigs, and then getting discovered. Read the history of your favourite artists and see how long it took them. Moreover the market is over-saturated now as everyone can record in the bedroom and distribute independently via the internet.
These are just my opinions and experiences, hopefully someone else here will chip in with their thoughts also.
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